Keyword: flagship

According to mothers’ experiences, the daily life during the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown in the spring of 2020 blurred the boundaries between work and family responsibilities and roles. Especially in families where the division of childcare responsibilities had been unequal already before the pandemic and where only the mother switched to working from home, the mothers felt that they shouldered the main responsibility for the increased childcare duties.

Adolescents who had received a mental health disorder diagnosis were often excluded from the labour market and education as young adults. This particularly applied to adolescents who had been diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder or psychosis. The results were found out in a birth cohort study of people born in Finland in 1987. The study was published on 5 October in British Journal of Psychiatry.

Shared care, in which children of separated parents live roughly equal amounts of time with each parent, has been increasing in many countries. It is also becoming a more popular arrangement across different social demographic groups. Little is known whether or not the economic outcomes for children and parents are different when shared care is chosen over single parent care, and whether these outcomes are similar across welfare states.

It is often assumed that families move to improve their economic and social prospects, and that these additional resources can benefit the whole family. However, existing research suggests that many children who have experienced long-distance moves within a country fair worse in general compared to non-moving peers.

The InFLAMES Research Flagship (Innovation Ecosystem based on the Immune System) and its first selection process for postdoctoral researcher positions has been completed. Four postdoctoral researchers have been selected by the InFLAMES Executive Team. They will strengthen InFLAMES research groups of immunological research. 

Although vaccination programmes against pertussis are very effective in Europe, new Finnish study shows that the disease is still very common among middle-aged adults in various European countries. At the same time, the results show that the disease is underdiagnosed as the annually reported figures are considerably lower than those discovered in the study.

Professor André Sourander has received substantial research funding from the European Research Council (ERC). Sourander received ERC Advanced Grant funding for a project “DIGIPARENT -  Implementation, personalization and genetics of digitally assisted parent training intervention to improve child mental health services.

Finnish parents felt that the Let’s Cope Together website, which is based on behavioural therapy methods, helped them and their child to manage worries related to the coronavirus during the first spring of the pandemic. The website, which has been created by the Research Centre for Child Psychiatry at the University of Turku, is opened today for anonymous use. As well as the English, Finnish and Swedish versions, the content will also soon be offered in Russian and Japanese.

The joint immunology flagship effort of the University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University is recruiting over 20 top experts. With the recruitments, the InFLAMES Flagship strengthens its role as the centre for top-level immunology research and development.