Arctic Health

The Arctic Health (AH) research group focuses on climate change and human health and well-being in the Arctic. The main theme in research is One health approach, including research ethics and community participation.

Projects cover environmental health, discrimination and marginalization, demographic population changes, and Indigenous health and well-being. We collaborate with several universities and research institutes in the Arctic through University of the Arctic Thematic Networks, Arctic Council (health groups in Sustainable Development Working Group, SDWG and Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, AMAP), research projects and Arctic Five activities. The members of the AH participate in the circumpolar doctoral education and Nordic projects, such as Arctic Youth and Sustainable Futures and hold leading positions in the UArctic, International Union of Circumpolar Health (IUCH), Circumpolar Health Research Network (CHRN) and Nordic Society for Circumpolar Health (NSCH).

Arctic Health team:

(main research group members)

VP Research UArctic, Professor Arja Rautio, Group Leader, MD, PhD, European Registered Toxicologist

Dr Rautio has been working in the topic of Arctic health and well-being since 2006. Her main research interests are on One health and climate change, Indigenous health and wellbeing, and research ethics. She is PI in several research projects funded by EU or national fundings and acting as a national key expert in the Human Health groups of the AMAP and member of SDWG of the Arctic Council. She is a board member of IUCH and Chair of NSCH, and a board member of the Arctic Society of Finland (2021-).

Email: arja.rautio (at) oulu.fi
Phone number: +358 40 5855776

Docent Khaled Abass, PhD, European Registered Toxicologist

Senior Toxicologist. Dr Abass received 2010 his PhD from Faculty of Medicine, UOulu, and is working as senior researcher. The main research interests are on environmental toxicology and human health risk assessment. In 2014, he has granted Adjunct Professor in Environmental Toxicology from the U Helsinki. He is a member of Human Health assessment group of the AMAP. He is a member of several international and national funded projects.

Email: khaled.megahed (at) oulu.fi
Phone number: +358 45 1106720

Dr. Anastasia Emelyanova, PhD

Anastasia Emelyanova, Postdoctoral Researcher, Thule Institute, University of Oulu & University of the Arctic, Finland (2017-). She is also Vice-Lead of the UArctic Thematic Network on Health and Well-being (2018-) and Arctic Five Chair in Healthy Ageing and One Health (2022-2024). Her research interests include demography and population changes across the Arctic region, northern health and well-being, One Health concept, and policy in respective fields. She holds several academic degrees from the University of Oulu in Finland (latest PhD in Arctic Health, Faculty of Medicine, 2015) and Northern Arctic Federal University (Social Work) in Russia. She is the Lead to the NAPA funded project “Arctic Healthy Aging communities: Safe and inclusive outdoor environment and public spaces” and an invited author to many international projects such as ClinfGreen, EDCMET, One Health MA course, Arctic Youth and Sustainable Futures, AGE-Arctic and others.

Email: anastasia.emelyanova (at) oulu.fi
Phone number: +358 50 5059636

Dr. Saranya Palaniswamy, PhD

Saranya Palaniswamy, Postdoctoral Researcher, Research Unit of Population Health, University of Oulu, Finland. The main research interests include environmental health, nutrition, noncommunicable diseases. She is working in the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme funded research project, “EDCMET”. Her main task is to investigate how exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals contribute to the risk of developing noncommunicable diseases using epidemiological birth cohorts, including Northern Finland Birth Cohorts.

Email: saranya.palaniswamy (at) oulu.fi

Dr. Ulla Timlin, PhD

Postdoctoral Researcher. In 2015, she received her PhD from Faculty of Medicine, UOulu, Finland. The main research interests are on mental health and well-being, especially on children, youth and families. She is working in the EU Horizon 2020 funded research project, “Nunataryuk”. Her main task is to investigate and assess risks of mental wellness associated with climate change and permafrost thaw. Her two other research projects are: Understanding the experience of mental health and wellbeing of young Sami reindeer herders in Finland using arts-based methods and Arctic Covid 19 Fulbright Project.

Email: ulla.timlin (at) oulu.fi
Phone number: +358 29 4483555, +358 50 4725354

Dr. Anna Reetta Rönkä, PhD

Anna Reetta Rönkä, Research Unit of Biomedicine and Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oulu, is a social scientists who works as a postdoctoral researcher in an EU Horizon -funded ArcSolution research project. ArcSolution focuses on pollution from local and remote sources in a climate change context, pollutant accumulation in food webs and human exposure, and develops One Health concept which take consideration perspectives of indigenous and local people in the Arctic. In ArcSolution Rönkä is working on citizen science projects conducted with local and indigenous peoples in the four study locations. Rönkä´s background is in cultural anthropology. In her multidisciplinary and mixed methods PhD thesis with both quantitative and qualitative data and analysis, she focused on experiences of loneliness among adolescents and young adults born and living in Northern Finland, in Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1986 data. Her current research interests relate to participatory community based research and citizen science, One Health, Circumpolar health and wellbeing as well as Arctic loneliness. She is a vice-lead of Thematic Network on health and Wellbeing in the Arctic and treasurer in the Nordic Society of Circumpolar health.

E-mail: anna.r.ronka (at) oulu.fi
Tel: +35829 4483813

Dr. Riitta-Marja Leinonen, PhD

Postdoctoral Researcher at the Research Unit of Biomedicine and Internal Medicine, University of Oulu, Finland. She has a PhD in cultural anthropology, and her main research interests are human-animal-environment connections and wellbeing, multispecies research, qualitative research methods, citizen science and community-based participatory research in northern and Arctic regions. She is currently working in the EU Horizon funded research project ArcSolution where her main task is to co-design citizen science projects with scientists and local and Indigenous people.

Email: riitta-marja.leinonen (at) oulu.fi
Phone number: +358505998553