Håkon Kristian Gjessing
Principal Investigator / Adjunct professor
Responsibilities
Håkon K. Gjessing is a Principal Investigator at the Centre for Fertility and Health at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and adjunct professor at the University of Bergen. His work focuses on developing and applying statistical methods to research on health and disease in populations, with particular emphasis on pregnancy, reproduction, early child development, and family-related health.
One of his main research areas is statistical genetics, including classical biometrical modelling, as well as molecular genetics, including GWAS and methylation analyses. He has developed the R-package “Haplin” (https://haplin.bitbucket.io/) for analyzing genetic family triad data.
He has co-authored a book on statistical models in Event History Analysis (https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-0-387-68560-1), and has contributed extensively to perinatal epidemiology, including the development of the Norwegian national reference curves for ultrasound pregnancy dating and fetal size evaluation (https://www.nsfm.no/esnurra), as well as national reference curves for fundal height measurements (https://www.helsedirektoratet.no/brosjyrer/helsekort-for-gravide).
He has published widely in international journals in probability, epidemiology, biostatistics, and public health, and has played key roles in collaborative research linked to the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) and other large population datasets. He has extensive experience working across disciplines, including collaborations at the intersection of clinical medicine, epidemiology, genetics, and statistical modeling.
Through his research, Gjessing contributes methodological tools and scientific insight that improve the quality of population health research and deepen understanding of health development across early life and generations.
Projects and publications
- Betydningen av foreldres alder for barnets utvikling og mentale helse.
- Centre for Fertility and Health
- Den maternelle effekten på barneastma
- Epidemiologiske studier av førtidlig fødsel innenfor den norske mor, far og barn kohorten
- Epigenetiske forandringer som mekanisme for leukemi hos barn
- ERC Starting Grant: INFERTILITY - Understanding the causal nature of the relationship between infertility and cardiovascular disease
- Genetiske faktorer i fødselsrelaterte fenotyper
- Health Gap: Health, maturity, and gender gap in education
- Konsekvenser av koronapandemien
- Overvåkning av SARS-CoV-2 hos norske barnehage- og skolebarn
- Sammenlikning av metoder for DNA metylering
- Sikker COVID-19 vaksinering under svangerskapet
- Spontan for tidlig fødsel og genetikk
- Studie av assistert reproduktiv teknologi (START) - epigenetiske mekanismer
- Telomere length and fertility in women