Morten Hulvej Rod
Biographic Data
| ID | 1741389 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Morten Hulvej Rod |
| GIVEN NAMES | Morten Hulvej |
| FAMILY NAME | Rod |
| SIGNATURE | ROD M H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Southern Denmark |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0178-5885 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 17 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Towards a complex systems model of evidence for public health
There has been growing interest in the adoption of complex systems approaches to tackle major public health challenges such as obesity. This perspective redirects focus from individually oriented and narrowly focused interventions towards strategies that reshape structural drivers of health and disease across multiple levels, offering novel avenues for enhancing population health and tackling health inequalities. Despite growing consensus on the …
“There’s so much wrong with me. I’ve just gotten a little sick”: Syndemic cancer experiences among people struggling with homelessness and severe substance use
This article investigates the complex ways that social conditions and illness experiences interact with cancer in a marginalised population. Drawing on the theoretical framework of syndemics, we explore how people living in circumstances of homelessness and severe substance use in Denmark experience and manage their cancer illness. We draw upon qualitative, partly longitudinal, interviews with marginalised people with current or previous cancer i…
‘You come as a human being…’: Exploring sense of equality in arts interventions through an ethnographic study of Shared Reading
Research shows that the arts hold a particular potential for promoting health, well-being and social inclusion for vulnerable people. However, the use and consumption of the arts tend to be socially skewed in favour of people with high cultural, social and economic capital. While extensive research has been conducted on how to create equal access to arts activities for vulnerable groups, little research has investigated how to ensure meaningful e…
“We're opening 20 doors!“: Exploring the collective dimensions of Shared Reading as mental health promotion among newly retired men in Denmark
Retirement is a significant life transition, bringing with it structural and social alterations in everyday life. For older men, work life is an important source of identity and meaning, and retirement may therefore lead to diminished well-being due to loss of occupational attachments. This calls for a need to address men's life transitions in health-promoting interventions and to explore how to introduce positive changes in retired men's mental …
Complexity Theory in Health Promotion Research: Four Essential Principles Based on Niklas Luhmann’s Systems Theory
Complexity-oriented approaches built on complexity theories are not widely used in health promotion research. The field of health promotion faces significant difficulties in explaining and addressing unforeseen impacts and side effects due to the widespread tendency to implement health promotion initiatives that are considered best practices. It is important to theoretically embrace the fact that we operate in a complex world and that we, therefo…
Promoting the health of vulnerable populations: Three steps towards a systems-based re-orientation of public health intervention research
This paper proposes a novel framework for the development of interventions in vulnerable populations. The framework combines a complex systems lens with syndemic theory. Whereas funding bodies, research organizations and reporting guidelines tend to encourage intervention research that (i) focuses on singular and predefined health outcomes, (ii) searches for generalizable cause-effect relationships, and (iii) aims to identify universally effectiv…
It's not that I don't have things to do. It just all revolves around me” – men's reflections on meaning in life in the transition to retirement in Denmark
Access to intervene. An ethnographic study of public health practices targeting health inequalities
Much public health research has devoted attention to the question of how interventions aimed at reducing health inequalities can access so-called "hard-to-reach" populations. This work has generally reflected an instrumentalist approach, which implies the preexistence of particular target groups characterized by specific public health problems. The key research interests are to find ways to effectively alleviate health inequalities and to identif…
The workings of an action learning program for building mental health promotion capacity – A realist evaluation
Action learning is a promising approach for building mental health promotion (MHP) capacity. The aim of this study is to explore how action learning processes can strengthen MHP capacity within and across organizations in a community setting. We applied an embedded case study design and a realist evaluation framework to explore key combinations of mechanisms and contextual factors that generated the emergent MHP capacity outcomes of an action lea…
Intersectoral mental health promotion – A practice-oriented taxonomy of roles and a study of intersectoral dynamics
The need for strengthening intersectoral mental health promotion (MHP), together with prevention and treatment, is widely acknowledged. However, what roles are involved in intersectoral MHP and the interrelatedness of these roles have received limited attention in the existing literature. Therefore, the aim of this study is, first, to develop a practice-oriented taxonomy of roles within intersectoral MHP practices and, secondly, to investigate in…
Para-Ethnography 2.0: An Experiment in Design Anthropological Collaboration
Drawing upon Douglas R. Holmes and George E. Marcus’s concept of para-ethnography, which they developed to capture the reflexive practices or ‘pre-existing ethnographic consciousness or curiosity’ of new subjects in contemporary field sites. This chapter discusses a collaborative experiment which we conducted with a Danish consultancy firm and a Danish engineering company. Focusing on management as a social practice rather than an individual skil…
School factors and student drinking in high schools: A cross-sectional study of school policies and party regulation
School alcohol policies were generally not associated with drinking among high school students, whereas students' lack of knowledge of the school policy was associated with a higher weekly alcohol intake. An addition, lower prices and liberal party regulation was associated with higher alcohol intake at school parties
Altered Self-Observations, Unclear Risk Perceptions and Changes in Relational Everyday Life: A Qualitative Study of Psychosocial Life with Diabetes during the Covid-19 Lockdown
When the Danish society went into COVID-19 lockdown, it dramatically changed the conditions for living with a chronic disease like diabetes. The present article highlights the psychosocial effects of this change. The dataset consists of 20 semi-structured online interviews with people with diabetes. The data were analyzed using radical hermeneutics and interpreted using Luhmann’s operative constructivist systems theory. The analysis produced thre…
Effectiveness of the settings-based intervention Shaping the Social on preventing dropout from vocational education: A Danish non-randomized controlled trial
ISRCTN, ISRCTN57822968 . Registered 16 January 2013 (retrospective registered)
Ambiguous expectations for intersectoral action for health: A document analysis of the Danish case
Ideas about intersectoral action and policy-making for health (ISA) are prominent among public health professionals. They are often presented as effective ways to address root causes of poor health and health inequality, and as such the best way to promote population health. The implementation of such ideas has proven difficult though. In this paper we argue that neo-institutional theory can help us conceptualize implementation challenges by poin…
The (failed) promise of intersectoral working groups and other rituals in Scandinavian public health
Can inequality be tamed through boundary work? A qualitative study of health promotion aimed at reducing health inequalities
A case of standardization? Implementing health promotion guidelines in Denmark
Guidelines are increasingly used in an effort to standardize and systematize health practices at the local level and to promote evidence-based practice. The implementation of guidelines frequently faces problems, however, and standardization processes may in general have other outcomes than the ones envisioned by the makers of standards. In 2012, the Danish National Health Authorities introduced a set of health promotion guidelines that were mean…
Effects of a settings-based intervention to promote student wellbeing and reduce smoking in vocational schools: A non-randomized controlled study
Shaping the Social: Design of a settings-based intervention study to improve well-being and reduce smoking and dropout in Danish vocational schools
ISRCTN57822968. Date of registration: 16/01/2013
How can we strengthen students’ social relations in order to reduce school dropout? An intervention development study within four Danish vocational schools
The development of new intervention programs might benefit from adopting a theoretical and methodological perspective that enables a closer exploration of the everyday social practices in which interventions are embedded. Thus, we aimed to create a comprehensive intervention that worked through organizational changes in everyday school practices. Intervention programs must be planned in dialogue and collaboration with practitioners in the field t…
The spirit of the intervention: Reflections on social effectiveness in public health intervention research
This paper suggests that public health intervention research would benefit from more thorough considerations of the social dynamics in which public health interventions are embedded. Rather than simply asking ‘What works?’, researchers should examine the social effectiveness of intervention programmes; i.e. (i) the creation of shared understandings among researchers and practitioners and (ii) the ways in which programmes reconfigure social relati…
‘We got incredibly drunk … it was damned fun’: Drinking stories among Danish youth
Drinking stories are immensely popular among contemporary Danish youth. The stories are shared with much enthusiasm in school, at parties, over the telephone and via the Internet. But why are the young so compelled by these seemingly vulgar stories? Applying the theories of, most importantly, Bakhtin (1968), Ricoeur (1991), and Jackson (2002), this paper examines a sample of drinking stories that were collected through two anthropological researc…
Can inequality be tamed through boundary work? A qualitative study of health promotion aimed at reducing health inequalities
Effects of a settings-based intervention to promote student wellbeing and reduce smoking in vocational schools: A non-randomized controlled study
Complexity Theory in Health Promotion Research: Four Essential Principles Based on Niklas Luhmann’s Systems Theory
Complexity-oriented approaches built on complexity theories are not widely used in health promotion research. The field of health promotion faces significant difficulties in explaining and addressing unforeseen impacts and side effects due to the widespread tendency to implement health promotion initiatives that are considered best practices. It is important to theoretically embrace the fact that we operate in a complex world and that we, therefo…
It's not that I don't have things to do. It just all revolves around me” – men's reflections on meaning in life in the transition to retirement in Denmark
Access to intervene. An ethnographic study of public health practices targeting health inequalities
Much public health research has devoted attention to the question of how interventions aimed at reducing health inequalities can access so-called "hard-to-reach" populations. This work has generally reflected an instrumentalist approach, which implies the preexistence of particular target groups characterized by specific public health problems. The key research interests are to find ways to effectively alleviate health inequalities and to identif…
Altered Self-Observations, Unclear Risk Perceptions and Changes in Relational Everyday Life: A Qualitative Study of Psychosocial Life with Diabetes during the Covid-19 Lockdown
When the Danish society went into COVID-19 lockdown, it dramatically changed the conditions for living with a chronic disease like diabetes. The present article highlights the psychosocial effects of this change. The dataset consists of 20 semi-structured online interviews with people with diabetes. The data were analyzed using radical hermeneutics and interpreted using Luhmann’s operative constructivist systems theory. The analysis produced thre…
‘We got incredibly drunk … it was damned fun’: Drinking stories among Danish youth
Drinking stories are immensely popular among contemporary Danish youth. The stories are shared with much enthusiasm in school, at parties, over the telephone and via the Internet. But why are the young so compelled by these seemingly vulgar stories? Applying the theories of, most importantly, Bakhtin (1968), Ricoeur (1991), and Jackson (2002), this paper examines a sample of drinking stories that were collected through two anthropological researc…
The spirit of the intervention: Reflections on social effectiveness in public health intervention research
This paper suggests that public health intervention research would benefit from more thorough considerations of the social dynamics in which public health interventions are embedded. Rather than simply asking ‘What works?’, researchers should examine the social effectiveness of intervention programmes; i.e. (i) the creation of shared understandings among researchers and practitioners and (ii) the ways in which programmes reconfigure social relati…
Shaping the Social: Design of a settings-based intervention study to improve well-being and reduce smoking and dropout in Danish vocational schools
ISRCTN57822968. Date of registration: 16/01/2013
How can we strengthen students’ social relations in order to reduce school dropout? An intervention development study within four Danish vocational schools
The development of new intervention programs might benefit from adopting a theoretical and methodological perspective that enables a closer exploration of the everyday social practices in which interventions are embedded. Thus, we aimed to create a comprehensive intervention that worked through organizational changes in everyday school practices. Intervention programs must be planned in dialogue and collaboration with practitioners in the field t…
A case of standardization? Implementing health promotion guidelines in Denmark
Guidelines are increasingly used in an effort to standardize and systematize health practices at the local level and to promote evidence-based practice. The implementation of guidelines frequently faces problems, however, and standardization processes may in general have other outcomes than the ones envisioned by the makers of standards. In 2012, the Danish National Health Authorities introduced a set of health promotion guidelines that were mean…
Effects of a settings-based intervention to promote student wellbeing and reduce smoking in vocational schools: A non-randomized controlled study
Ambiguous expectations for intersectoral action for health: A document analysis of the Danish case
Ideas about intersectoral action and policy-making for health (ISA) are prominent among public health professionals. They are often presented as effective ways to address root causes of poor health and health inequality, and as such the best way to promote population health. The implementation of such ideas has proven difficult though. In this paper we argue that neo-institutional theory can help us conceptualize implementation challenges by poin…
The (failed) promise of intersectoral working groups and other rituals in Scandinavian public health
Can inequality be tamed through boundary work? A qualitative study of health promotion aimed at reducing health inequalities
Effectiveness of the settings-based intervention Shaping the Social on preventing dropout from vocational education: A Danish non-randomized controlled trial
ISRCTN, ISRCTN57822968 . Registered 16 January 2013 (retrospective registered)
Para-Ethnography 2.0: An Experiment in Design Anthropological Collaboration
Drawing upon Douglas R. Holmes and George E. Marcus’s concept of para-ethnography, which they developed to capture the reflexive practices or ‘pre-existing ethnographic consciousness or curiosity’ of new subjects in contemporary field sites. This chapter discusses a collaborative experiment which we conducted with a Danish consultancy firm and a Danish engineering company. Focusing on management as a social practice rather than an individual skil…
School factors and student drinking in high schools: A cross-sectional study of school policies and party regulation
School alcohol policies were generally not associated with drinking among high school students, whereas students' lack of knowledge of the school policy was associated with a higher weekly alcohol intake. An addition, lower prices and liberal party regulation was associated with higher alcohol intake at school parties
Altered Self-Observations, Unclear Risk Perceptions and Changes in Relational Everyday Life: A Qualitative Study of Psychosocial Life with Diabetes during the Covid-19 Lockdown
When the Danish society went into COVID-19 lockdown, it dramatically changed the conditions for living with a chronic disease like diabetes. The present article highlights the psychosocial effects of this change. The dataset consists of 20 semi-structured online interviews with people with diabetes. The data were analyzed using radical hermeneutics and interpreted using Luhmann’s operative constructivist systems theory. The analysis produced thre…
The workings of an action learning program for building mental health promotion capacity – A realist evaluation
Action learning is a promising approach for building mental health promotion (MHP) capacity. The aim of this study is to explore how action learning processes can strengthen MHP capacity within and across organizations in a community setting. We applied an embedded case study design and a realist evaluation framework to explore key combinations of mechanisms and contextual factors that generated the emergent MHP capacity outcomes of an action lea…
Intersectoral mental health promotion – A practice-oriented taxonomy of roles and a study of intersectoral dynamics
The need for strengthening intersectoral mental health promotion (MHP), together with prevention and treatment, is widely acknowledged. However, what roles are involved in intersectoral MHP and the interrelatedness of these roles have received limited attention in the existing literature. Therefore, the aim of this study is, first, to develop a practice-oriented taxonomy of roles within intersectoral MHP practices and, secondly, to investigate in…
“We're opening 20 doors!“: Exploring the collective dimensions of Shared Reading as mental health promotion among newly retired men in Denmark
Retirement is a significant life transition, bringing with it structural and social alterations in everyday life. For older men, work life is an important source of identity and meaning, and retirement may therefore lead to diminished well-being due to loss of occupational attachments. This calls for a need to address men's life transitions in health-promoting interventions and to explore how to introduce positive changes in retired men's mental …
Complexity Theory in Health Promotion Research: Four Essential Principles Based on Niklas Luhmann’s Systems Theory
Complexity-oriented approaches built on complexity theories are not widely used in health promotion research. The field of health promotion faces significant difficulties in explaining and addressing unforeseen impacts and side effects due to the widespread tendency to implement health promotion initiatives that are considered best practices. It is important to theoretically embrace the fact that we operate in a complex world and that we, therefo…
Promoting the health of vulnerable populations: Three steps towards a systems-based re-orientation of public health intervention research
This paper proposes a novel framework for the development of interventions in vulnerable populations. The framework combines a complex systems lens with syndemic theory. Whereas funding bodies, research organizations and reporting guidelines tend to encourage intervention research that (i) focuses on singular and predefined health outcomes, (ii) searches for generalizable cause-effect relationships, and (iii) aims to identify universally effectiv…
It's not that I don't have things to do. It just all revolves around me” – men's reflections on meaning in life in the transition to retirement in Denmark
Access to intervene. An ethnographic study of public health practices targeting health inequalities
Much public health research has devoted attention to the question of how interventions aimed at reducing health inequalities can access so-called "hard-to-reach" populations. This work has generally reflected an instrumentalist approach, which implies the preexistence of particular target groups characterized by specific public health problems. The key research interests are to find ways to effectively alleviate health inequalities and to identif…
“There’s so much wrong with me. I’ve just gotten a little sick”: Syndemic cancer experiences among people struggling with homelessness and severe substance use
This article investigates the complex ways that social conditions and illness experiences interact with cancer in a marginalised population. Drawing on the theoretical framework of syndemics, we explore how people living in circumstances of homelessness and severe substance use in Denmark experience and manage their cancer illness. We draw upon qualitative, partly longitudinal, interviews with marginalised people with current or previous cancer i…
‘You come as a human being…’: Exploring sense of equality in arts interventions through an ethnographic study of Shared Reading
Research shows that the arts hold a particular potential for promoting health, well-being and social inclusion for vulnerable people. However, the use and consumption of the arts tend to be socially skewed in favour of people with high cultural, social and economic capital. While extensive research has been conducted on how to create equal access to arts activities for vulnerable groups, little research has investigated how to ensure meaningful e…
Towards a complex systems model of evidence for public health
There has been growing interest in the adoption of complex systems approaches to tackle major public health challenges such as obesity. This perspective redirects focus from individually oriented and narrowly focused interventions towards strategies that reshape structural drivers of health and disease across multiple levels, offering novel avenues for enhancing population health and tackling health inequalities. Despite growing consensus on the …
Medicine (15 works) · Psychology (15 works) · Political science (13 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Public health (11 works) · Nursing (10 works) · Health Policy Implementation Science (9 works) · Danish (6 works) · Intervention (counseling (6 works) · Social Psychology (6 works)