Roosa Sofia Tikkanen

Roosa Sofia Tikkanen is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo, Norway, supporting two EU-funded projects examining the effect and implementation of digital health interventions to improve maternal and child health in Sub-Saharan African contexts, ENABLE and Linda Familia. Tikkanen specializes in health policy research with 15 years of experience from academic, think-tank/foundation, consulting and private sectors. Her research has examined health inequalities, primary health care, health workforce, comparative health systems performance, and women’s and maternal health care. Dr. Tikkanen’s doctoral thesis in political science from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (2025) focused on the political economy of community health workers, examining their working conditions, labor policies and occupational health outcomes, with a case study in Nepal in collaboration with Kathmandu University. Dr. Tikkanen has consulted for the OECD and the WHO, and is an Affiliated Researcher at the Global Primary Care & Future Health Systems unit, Nuffield Department of Primary Care, Oxford University. Dr. Tikkanen is an Associate Editor at the International Journal of Health Planning and Management (Wiley) and Chair of the Social Science Approaches for Research and Engagement in Health Policy and Systems Research (SHAPES), a thematic working group of Health Systems Global. Utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methods, her research has been published in high-impact journals including Health Policy & Planning, Social Science and Medicine – Health Systems, New England Journal of Medicine, BMJ Global Health, the International Journal of Equity in Health, and Health Affairs. A trained neuroscientist, Dr. Tikkanen holds a Masters in Public Health in Health Policy from Harvard University and a Masters in Integrative Biology from the University of Manchester.