Sakari Karvonen
Biographic Data
| ID | 247406 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sakari Karvonen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sakari |
| FAMILY NAME | Karvonen |
| SIGNATURE | KARVONEN S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2127-9405 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 32 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 109 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Subjective energy poverty and attitudes on climate change mitigation measures: Empirical and ethical considerations
Objective energy poverty—commonly defined using indicators such as the relationship between energy costs, income, and energy required for adequate living—has been widely studied, yet less is known about how subjective energy poverty shapes attitudes toward climate change mitigation measures. This study examines theoretical and empirical links between subjective energy poverty and support for climate measures, including fossil fuel taxation and tw…
Nudge the rich! The case for targeting the top 10% in behavioural climate policy
In interventions for the common good, such as in the climate context, the choice of a target group does not directly determine the beneficiaries of the intervention. Instead, efficacy, acceptability, and fairness emerge as core considerations in targeting interventions. This paper examines targeting the top 10% by income and assets in climate interventions in light of the above considerations. Addressing the climate crisis requires significant ch…
Exploring climate nudge attitudes—the significance of perceived climate change knowledge, science trust, and media trust
Attitudes toward specific nudges have been extensively studied, but there is a lack of research on attitudes toward climate nudging in a broader sense. This study investigates public attitudes toward climate nudging, utilising Climate Nudge-survey data from 2022 with 2169 respondents in Finland. A novel question set was used to capture attitudes from different perspectives on climate nudging. Employing varimax-rotated factor analysis, two key fac…
People-processing in youth welfare services: A cross-sectional approach
Current tobacco use and Sars-CoV-2 infection in two Norwegian population-based cohorts
Cigarette smoking, but not snus use, was negatively associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection in women. The lack of an association between snus use and SARS-CoV-2 infection in this population with prevalent snus use does not support the hypothesis of a protective effect of nicotine
Parental social disadvantage as a determinant of welfare reliance among young adults before and after the Great Recession
We investigate the association between parental social disadvantage and later welfare reliance among their children during entry to adulthood. We ask whether this association changed after the onset of the Great Recession. We use Finnish register-based data, studying young adults aged 18–22 in the years 2003–2012. Parental disadvantage is measured as low education, low income, unemployment and social assistance receipt when the children were at t…
The role of social transfers in mitigating families with children from the economic impact of the Covid ‐19 pandemic
In this study, we investigated the household income of families with children. Our specific interest was the earned income losses during the COVID‐19 pandemic, and how social transfers have mitigated those losses. We assessed the monthly income levels by comparing the information on the year prior to pandemic to income levels during COVID‐19 pandemic. We found that the pandemic affected all studied subgroups of families with children, with the mo…
Assessing health gradient with different equivalence scales for household income – A sensitivity analysis
Research on health inequalities shows considerable variation in health by socioeconomic position regardless of measurement. Income level is among the most commonly used indicators to measure the social gradient in health. The income gradient in health may, however, vary according to what aspect of health is studied but equally it may depend on how income is measured. The traditional approach of measuring income is to use household income and to m…
Accumulated Disadvantage over the Lower Secondary School Years in Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Finland
Accumulated disadvantage (AD) is conceptualised here as an agglomeration of unfavourable or prejudicial conditions which in adolescence may compromise the progress to further education or future life chances. There are several theories on AD, suggesting, e.g., (1) an increase of AD by age and (2) trajectories (previous disadvantage predicts later disadvantage). Social pathways theory suggests that (3) a third factor (e.g., socioeconomic position,…
Bidirectional Relationship of Sleep with Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties: A Five-year Follow-up of Finnish Adolescents
The long-term effects of sleep on adolescent psychosocial well-being are mostly unknown, although insufficient sleep has been associated with emotional and behavioral difficulties in cross-sectional studies. With a five-year follow-up of Finnish adolescents (Time 1: n = 8834; Mean age = 13 years, 51.1% female, Time 2: n = 5315, Mean age = 15 years, 51.6% female, Time 3: n = 3712; Mean age = 17 years; 50.2% female), the purpose of this longitudina…
Health and educational aspirations in adolescence: A longitudinal study in Finland
Our findings show that selection by health factors to different educational trajectories takes place at early teenage much before adolescents choose their educational track, thus supporting the health selection hypothesis in the creation of socioeconomic health inequalities. Our findings also show the importance of adolescence in this process. More studies are needed to reveal which measures would be effective in helping students with poor health…
The Sola Model: A Theory-Based Approach to Social Quality and Social Sustainability
Sustainability is frequently discussed with reference to the “3-pillar” model distinguishing ecological, economic and social sustainability. However, social sustainability is treated as a residual category without adequate theoretical conceptualization. As a consequence, we find a wealth of approaches and models proposing a wide range of social indicators on individual and collective levels, both subjective and objective. While this diversity is …
Who Needs the Sociology of Health and Illness? A New Agenda for Responsive and Interdisciplinary Sociology of Health and Medicine
Health and medicine are key areas of sociological specialization, but in the face of rapid global challenges, they are changing. The need for change is becoming more and more urgent and the relevance of some of the traditional approaches, frameworks and theoretical perspectives should be evaluated. The aim of this article is to reflect on this issue and to explore what could be done in response to scientific and societal developments. We argue th…
The contribution of travel-related urban zones, cycling and pedestrian networks and green space to commuting physical activity among adults – a cross-sectional population-based study using geographica…
Good pedestrian and cycling infrastructure may play an important role in promoting commuting physical activity among the employed population, regardless of educational background, leisure-time and occupational physical activity. Close proximity to green space and a high proportion of green space near the home may not be sufficient to initiate commuting physical activity in Finland, where homes surrounded by green areas are often situated in car-o…
Floating Downstream? Parental Support and Future Expectations of Young People from Less Privileged Backgrounds
Here we present an analysis of young people's orientations to the future in the context of intergenerational relations. We draw on qualitative interviews to examine how young people from less privileged backgrounds use their family as an anchor when mapping the landscape of possible futures. Further, we use extensive quantitative material from structured surveys to provide contextual information on how young people's imagined futures are shaped b…
Multiple social disadvantage does it have an effect on amenable mortality: A brief report
In order to prevent and treat at an early phase conditions that otherwise may lead to premature and unnecessary deaths more attention should be focused on groups with increased social and economic deprivation risk in municipal health centres with the aim at improving access to primary care. Our results also call for joint action by both health-care and social services, since health services alone cannot deal with the risks posed by accumulating s…
Associations between Sexual Abstinence Ideals, Religiosity, and Alcohol Abstinence: A Longitudinal Study of Finnish Twins
We analyzed prevalence and stability of attitudes endorsing sexual abstinence ideals from late adolescence into early adulthood and studied associations of these attitudes with religiosity and alcohol abstinence in a sexually liberal Nordic society. Our population-based sample of Finnish twins permitted comparisons of co-twins concordant for religiosity but discordant for drinking to evaluate the association of sexual abstinence ideals with alcoh…
Value orientations among late modern youth – a cross-cultural study
Few studies have sought to test whether changes in value orientation proposed by social theories can empirically be found. This study aims to rigorously test the extent to which there is similarity in values, in two large samples representative of 15-year-olds. We hypothesised that youth from Helsinki are more likely to hold more late-modern values and Glaswegian youth more modern values with more traditional elements. The material was drawn from…
P1-233 Assessing the effect of individual and area level sociodemographic factors on regional differences in mortality amenable to healthcare
Introduction Mortality from many causes varies geographically. We examine trends in regional differences in amenable mortality in Finland and explore the role of socioeconomic factors. Methods We analysed deaths amenable to primary and specialist healthcare in the Finnish population aged 25–74 in 1992–2003. Sociodemographic variables were individually linked from annual employment statistics. Three area-level scores were created using factor anal…
Subjective social status and health in young people
Health inequalities according to objective socioeconomic position (SEP), have been well-documented. Yet, in young people the associations are negligible. Recently, research on the association of subjective social status (SSS), and adult health has begun to accumulate. Studies on young people are rare and describe societies with large income inequalities. Here, we investigated the association between SSS and health, while controlling for own and f…
Smoking in context – a multilevel approach to smoking among females in Helsinki
The large variation in smoking rates between areas appears mainly to result from variation in the characteristics of residents within areas. Yet, living in an area with a high level of unemployment appears to be an additional risk for smoking that cannot be fully accounted for by individual level characteristics even in a cohort of female municipal employees
All in the Family? The Structure and Meaning of Family Life among Young People
The aim of this article is to explore young people's everyday family life with special reference to the use of time. First, we ask what kinds of activities young people engage in with their families, what kinds of families spend most time together, and whether this has changed over time. These analyses were based on two surveys conducted in the school setting in 1998 (N=2420) and in 2004 (N=2477). Second, we analyse the way young people perceive …
Socioeconomic status and smoking
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Socioeconomic differences in smoking have been well established. While previous studies have mostly relied on one socioeconomic indicator at a time, this study examined socioeconomic differences in smoking by using several indicators that reflect different dimensions of socioeconomic position. DATA AND METHODS: Data derive from Helsinki Health Study baseline surveys conducted among the employees of the City of Helsinki in 200…
The contribution of lone parenthood and economic difficulties to smoking
Lifestyles, social background and eating patterns of 15‐year‐old boys and girls in Finland
The aim was to investigate whether lifestyles or social background have stronger impact on eating patterns among young people. A school‐based survey carried out in 1998 among 15‐year‐old pupils (n=2388) in Helsinki was used as data. The lifestyle dimensions of leisure‐time activities used were street‐oriented lifestyle, commercialised lifestyle, home‐oriented lifestyle, and arts‐oriented and hobby‐oriented lifestyle. Social background was indicat…
Socio-regional context as a determinant of adolescents' health behaviour in Finland
Social mobility and health related behaviours in young people
STUDY OBJECTIVE: To assess the influences related to social mobility, particularly health related behaviours, as one potential explanation for the social class variation in health among adults. DESIGN: The study is based on questionnaire data from the Adolescent Health and Lifestyle Surveys of 1985, 1987, and 1989. SETTING: The whole of Finland. PARTICIPANTS: A representative sample of 8355 adolescents. The response rate was 79%. MEASUREMENT AND …
Urban small area variation in adolescents' health behaviour
All in the Family? The Structure and Meaning of Family Life among Young People
The aim of this article is to explore young people's everyday family life with special reference to the use of time. First, we ask what kinds of activities young people engage in with their families, what kinds of families spend most time together, and whether this has changed over time. These analyses were based on two surveys conducted in the school setting in 1998 (N=2420) and in 2004 (N=2477). Second, we analyse the way young people perceive …
Subjective social status and health in young people
Health inequalities according to objective socioeconomic position (SEP), have been well-documented. Yet, in young people the associations are negligible. Recently, research on the association of subjective social status (SSS), and adult health has begun to accumulate. Studies on young people are rare and describe societies with large income inequalities. Here, we investigated the association between SSS and health, while controlling for own and f…
Bidirectional Relationship of Sleep with Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties: A Five-year Follow-up of Finnish Adolescents
The long-term effects of sleep on adolescent psychosocial well-being are mostly unknown, although insufficient sleep has been associated with emotional and behavioral difficulties in cross-sectional studies. With a five-year follow-up of Finnish adolescents (Time 1: n = 8834; Mean age = 13 years, 51.1% female, Time 2: n = 5315, Mean age = 15 years, 51.6% female, Time 3: n = 3712; Mean age = 17 years; 50.2% female), the purpose of this longitudina…
Floating Downstream? Parental Support and Future Expectations of Young People from Less Privileged Backgrounds
Here we present an analysis of young people's orientations to the future in the context of intergenerational relations. We draw on qualitative interviews to examine how young people from less privileged backgrounds use their family as an anchor when mapping the landscape of possible futures. Further, we use extensive quantitative material from structured surveys to provide contextual information on how young people's imagined futures are shaped b…
The contribution of lone parenthood and economic difficulties to smoking
Lifestyle, Social Class and Health-Related Behaviour: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of 15 Year Olds in Glasgow and Helsinki
The extent to which young people's lifestyles are related to social class, their relationship with health behaviours, and variations in these relationships between countries are of central relevance to an assessment of the extent to which post-modern (global) influences have replaced those associated with traditional (local) social structures. A comparison between 15 year olds in Glasgow and Helsinki reveals a remarkably similar pattern of relati…
Value orientations among late modern youth – a cross-cultural study
Few studies have sought to test whether changes in value orientation proposed by social theories can empirically be found. This study aims to rigorously test the extent to which there is similarity in values, in two large samples representative of 15-year-olds. We hypothesised that youth from Helsinki are more likely to hold more late-modern values and Glaswegian youth more modern values with more traditional elements. The material was drawn from…
Who Needs the Sociology of Health and Illness? A New Agenda for Responsive and Interdisciplinary Sociology of Health and Medicine
Health and medicine are key areas of sociological specialization, but in the face of rapid global challenges, they are changing. The need for change is becoming more and more urgent and the relevance of some of the traditional approaches, frameworks and theoretical perspectives should be evaluated. The aim of this article is to reflect on this issue and to explore what could be done in response to scientific and societal developments. We argue th…
Lifestyles, social background and eating patterns of 15‐year‐old boys and girls in Finland
The aim was to investigate whether lifestyles or social background have stronger impact on eating patterns among young people. A school‐based survey carried out in 1998 among 15‐year‐old pupils (n=2388) in Helsinki was used as data. The lifestyle dimensions of leisure‐time activities used were street‐oriented lifestyle, commercialised lifestyle, home‐oriented lifestyle, and arts‐oriented and hobby‐oriented lifestyle. Social background was indicat…
The role of social transfers in mitigating families with children from the economic impact of the Covid ‐19 pandemic
In this study, we investigated the household income of families with children. Our specific interest was the earned income losses during the COVID‐19 pandemic, and how social transfers have mitigated those losses. We assessed the monthly income levels by comparing the information on the year prior to pandemic to income levels during COVID‐19 pandemic. We found that the pandemic affected all studied subgroups of families with children, with the mo…
Oral health promotion among Finnish adolescents between 1977 and 1989
In Finland a national, comprehensive preventive oriented oral health programme was implemented in 1972. Oral health habits and services as well as their development were followed in the Juvenile Health Habit Study programme between 1977 and 1989. Postal questionnaires were sent to 12–18 year old Finns every second year from 1977. The response rates of the nationally representative samples were 79–88%. The most recent questionnaire was answered by…
Bar coding--a functional tool in survey research
STUDY OBJECTIVE--The aim was to assess the value of bar coding, together with developed microcomputer programs, as a tool to speed up mailing and handling of return responses of a survey where over 4000 adolescents received a mailed questionnaire. DESIGN--Bar codes were used for displaying the identification number of a questionnaire, as well as each response alternative and number of the question. These bar codes were read by a wand, a handhold …
Socio-regional context as a determinant of adolescents' health behaviour in Finland
Regional diversity in smoking among Finnish adolescents—a comparison of conventional administrative and cultural categorizations
Urban small area variation in adolescents' health behaviour
Social mobility and health related behaviours in young people
STUDY OBJECTIVE: To assess the influences related to social mobility, particularly health related behaviours, as one potential explanation for the social class variation in health among adults. DESIGN: The study is based on questionnaire data from the Adolescent Health and Lifestyle Surveys of 1985, 1987, and 1989. SETTING: The whole of Finland. PARTICIPANTS: A representative sample of 8355 adolescents. The response rate was 79%. MEASUREMENT AND …
Lifestyle, Social Class and Health-Related Behaviour: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of 15 Year Olds in Glasgow and Helsinki
The extent to which young people's lifestyles are related to social class, their relationship with health behaviours, and variations in these relationships between countries are of central relevance to an assessment of the extent to which post-modern (global) influences have replaced those associated with traditional (local) social structures. A comparison between 15 year olds in Glasgow and Helsinki reveals a remarkably similar pattern of relati…
Lifestyles, social background and eating patterns of 15‐year‐old boys and girls in Finland
The aim was to investigate whether lifestyles or social background have stronger impact on eating patterns among young people. A school‐based survey carried out in 1998 among 15‐year‐old pupils (n=2388) in Helsinki was used as data. The lifestyle dimensions of leisure‐time activities used were street‐oriented lifestyle, commercialised lifestyle, home‐oriented lifestyle, and arts‐oriented and hobby‐oriented lifestyle. Social background was indicat…
Socioeconomic status and smoking
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Socioeconomic differences in smoking have been well established. While previous studies have mostly relied on one socioeconomic indicator at a time, this study examined socioeconomic differences in smoking by using several indicators that reflect different dimensions of socioeconomic position. DATA AND METHODS: Data derive from Helsinki Health Study baseline surveys conducted among the employees of the City of Helsinki in 200…
The contribution of lone parenthood and economic difficulties to smoking
All in the Family? The Structure and Meaning of Family Life among Young People
The aim of this article is to explore young people's everyday family life with special reference to the use of time. First, we ask what kinds of activities young people engage in with their families, what kinds of families spend most time together, and whether this has changed over time. These analyses were based on two surveys conducted in the school setting in 1998 (N=2420) and in 2004 (N=2477). Second, we analyse the way young people perceive …
Smoking in context – a multilevel approach to smoking among females in Helsinki
The large variation in smoking rates between areas appears mainly to result from variation in the characteristics of residents within areas. Yet, living in an area with a high level of unemployment appears to be an additional risk for smoking that cannot be fully accounted for by individual level characteristics even in a cohort of female municipal employees
Value orientations among late modern youth – a cross-cultural study
Few studies have sought to test whether changes in value orientation proposed by social theories can empirically be found. This study aims to rigorously test the extent to which there is similarity in values, in two large samples representative of 15-year-olds. We hypothesised that youth from Helsinki are more likely to hold more late-modern values and Glaswegian youth more modern values with more traditional elements. The material was drawn from…
P1-233 Assessing the effect of individual and area level sociodemographic factors on regional differences in mortality amenable to healthcare
Introduction Mortality from many causes varies geographically. We examine trends in regional differences in amenable mortality in Finland and explore the role of socioeconomic factors. Methods We analysed deaths amenable to primary and specialist healthcare in the Finnish population aged 25–74 in 1992–2003. Sociodemographic variables were individually linked from annual employment statistics. Three area-level scores were created using factor anal…
Subjective social status and health in young people
Health inequalities according to objective socioeconomic position (SEP), have been well-documented. Yet, in young people the associations are negligible. Recently, research on the association of subjective social status (SSS), and adult health has begun to accumulate. Studies on young people are rare and describe societies with large income inequalities. Here, we investigated the association between SSS and health, while controlling for own and f…
Associations between Sexual Abstinence Ideals, Religiosity, and Alcohol Abstinence: A Longitudinal Study of Finnish Twins
We analyzed prevalence and stability of attitudes endorsing sexual abstinence ideals from late adolescence into early adulthood and studied associations of these attitudes with religiosity and alcohol abstinence in a sexually liberal Nordic society. Our population-based sample of Finnish twins permitted comparisons of co-twins concordant for religiosity but discordant for drinking to evaluate the association of sexual abstinence ideals with alcoh…
Multiple social disadvantage does it have an effect on amenable mortality: A brief report
In order to prevent and treat at an early phase conditions that otherwise may lead to premature and unnecessary deaths more attention should be focused on groups with increased social and economic deprivation risk in municipal health centres with the aim at improving access to primary care. Our results also call for joint action by both health-care and social services, since health services alone cannot deal with the risks posed by accumulating s…
The contribution of travel-related urban zones, cycling and pedestrian networks and green space to commuting physical activity among adults – a cross-sectional population-based study using geographica…
Good pedestrian and cycling infrastructure may play an important role in promoting commuting physical activity among the employed population, regardless of educational background, leisure-time and occupational physical activity. Close proximity to green space and a high proportion of green space near the home may not be sufficient to initiate commuting physical activity in Finland, where homes surrounded by green areas are often situated in car-o…
Floating Downstream? Parental Support and Future Expectations of Young People from Less Privileged Backgrounds
Here we present an analysis of young people's orientations to the future in the context of intergenerational relations. We draw on qualitative interviews to examine how young people from less privileged backgrounds use their family as an anchor when mapping the landscape of possible futures. Further, we use extensive quantitative material from structured surveys to provide contextual information on how young people's imagined futures are shaped b…
Who Needs the Sociology of Health and Illness? A New Agenda for Responsive and Interdisciplinary Sociology of Health and Medicine
Health and medicine are key areas of sociological specialization, but in the face of rapid global challenges, they are changing. The need for change is becoming more and more urgent and the relevance of some of the traditional approaches, frameworks and theoretical perspectives should be evaluated. The aim of this article is to reflect on this issue and to explore what could be done in response to scientific and societal developments. We argue th…
Health and educational aspirations in adolescence: A longitudinal study in Finland
Our findings show that selection by health factors to different educational trajectories takes place at early teenage much before adolescents choose their educational track, thus supporting the health selection hypothesis in the creation of socioeconomic health inequalities. Our findings also show the importance of adolescence in this process. More studies are needed to reveal which measures would be effective in helping students with poor health…
The Sola Model: A Theory-Based Approach to Social Quality and Social Sustainability
Sustainability is frequently discussed with reference to the “3-pillar” model distinguishing ecological, economic and social sustainability. However, social sustainability is treated as a residual category without adequate theoretical conceptualization. As a consequence, we find a wealth of approaches and models proposing a wide range of social indicators on individual and collective levels, both subjective and objective. While this diversity is …
Accumulated Disadvantage over the Lower Secondary School Years in Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Finland
Accumulated disadvantage (AD) is conceptualised here as an agglomeration of unfavourable or prejudicial conditions which in adolescence may compromise the progress to further education or future life chances. There are several theories on AD, suggesting, e.g., (1) an increase of AD by age and (2) trajectories (previous disadvantage predicts later disadvantage). Social pathways theory suggests that (3) a third factor (e.g., socioeconomic position,…
Bidirectional Relationship of Sleep with Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties: A Five-year Follow-up of Finnish Adolescents
The long-term effects of sleep on adolescent psychosocial well-being are mostly unknown, although insufficient sleep has been associated with emotional and behavioral difficulties in cross-sectional studies. With a five-year follow-up of Finnish adolescents (Time 1: n = 8834; Mean age = 13 years, 51.1% female, Time 2: n = 5315, Mean age = 15 years, 51.6% female, Time 3: n = 3712; Mean age = 17 years; 50.2% female), the purpose of this longitudina…
Assessing health gradient with different equivalence scales for household income – A sensitivity analysis
Research on health inequalities shows considerable variation in health by socioeconomic position regardless of measurement. Income level is among the most commonly used indicators to measure the social gradient in health. The income gradient in health may, however, vary according to what aspect of health is studied but equally it may depend on how income is measured. The traditional approach of measuring income is to use household income and to m…
Medicine (21 works) · Psychology (18 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Demography (13 works) · Demography (11 works) · Health disparities and outcomes (11 works) · Political science (10 works) · Environmental health (9 works) · Geography (8 works) · Population (8 works)