Masoud Vaezghasemi

I am Associate Professor (Docent) in Global Health with a primary focus on investigating social and contextual disparities (mainly) in children's health. Additionally, I am intensely involved in teaching both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies at the Master and PhD levels in the Department of Epidemiology and Global Health, Umeå University, Sweden.

My research approach to child health takes a holistic and relational perspective in which not only every child should survive and have a good start, but also the opportunity to thrive in life, taking into account physical, social, and geographical determinants.

At present, I am leading two research initiatives:
1.    Exploring the evolution of obesity in Sweden from the Precision Public Health perspective.
2.    Strengthening mental health services for children in Cambodia.

Furthermore, I am actively engaged in collaborative efforts on various global research projects. These projects mainly focus on addressing issues such as malnutrition, mental health, wellbeing, food insecurity, climate change and interventions related to social networks in Low- to Middle-Income Countries (LMICs), including Indonesia, India, Nepal, Cambodia, South Africa, Somalia, Ghana, Liberia, and Ivory Coast.

I’m facilitating the research profile seminars on ‘Emerging Global Health Challenges’ at the Department of Epidemiology and Global Health.

At the heart of my teaching efforts lies an important objective in every course. This objective or purpose is based on the informed choices that is actively communicated with students (Glassick 1997; Trigwell 2001). It is to create and promote an environment wherein students can enthusiastically interact and critically examine the complex global health challenges of our time. Central to this educational approach is a strong emphasis on collaborative group work, cultural competence, and global perspectives – as will be exemplified below – which encourages individual students to actively participate in different group works and in the co-creation of assignments and the generation of knowledge (Brodin E 2020; Henriksson AS 2016).

This is also in line with our institutional pedagogical vision which guides planning and implementation of our teaching activates that are based on: (i) active learning through a student perspective; (ii) collaborative learning; and (iii) reflective approach to learning.

I am course coordinator for:

1.   The Epidemiology course (10 ECTS), given to Master students in Umeå International School of Public Health. 

2.   An introduction to multilevel analysis: An epidemiological approach (online), 3 ECTS, given to doctoral students.

3.    I’m also involved in a “Training-of-Trainers (ToT) Course in Health Research Methodology” for young academics in Somalia as part of the Somali-Swedish Research Collaboration for Health with support from the Public Health Agency of Sweden (FHM) and the Swedish Research Council (VR).