A large-scale initiative by THL and the Finnish Cultural Foundation brings together the data of the entire age group into a life-long study
The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) and the Finnish Cultural Foundation are launching an extensive initiative aimed at strengthening the Finnish welfare society over the next 100 years by means of scientific research. The preparation phase will be coordinated by the THL and funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
"Finnish society is once again in a state of transition, which involves many problems requiring solutions. In the first steps, this initiative aims at promoting the well-being of children and young people and helping to reduce social exclusion. The population data to be combined is expected to improve the readiness for strengthening Finland’s welfare society. During the coming decades, this knowledge base will play a major role for the well-being of people who live in Finland," says Dr Ville Pernaa, who will step into his role as the fixed-term director of the preparation phase at the beginning of August 2023.
To achieve the ambitious objectives of the initiative, a national, multidisciplinary, human-life-long birth cohort will be established. The aim is to bring together data from existing information sources and find solutions to the information gaps currently identified in the knowledge base related for example to children and young people.
The cross-disciplinary and cross-sectional data will help us to better understand complex social phenomena affecting people's well-being and the causalities related to them. National register data can be enriched with other information sources, e.g., by means of questionnaire surveys. The aim is to involve people themselves in the data collection.
The preparation phase of this large-scale initiative will be carried out at THL, whose statutory task is to examine and monitor the population health and well-being. Objectives of the preparatory phase are to ensure social, economic, legal, and operational preconditions for establishment of the data resource, and to design a functional implementation model for the data collection and management. An implementation plan will be drawn up in active cooperation with all relevant stakeholders and experts.
If the prerequisites for implementation are met, the Finnish Cultural Foundation is committed to financing the first 20 years of initiative with tens of millions of euros.
Update of the Finnish birth cohort data into the 2020s
In Finland, population-based cohort research has long traditions. Our comprehensive national register data materials are also well-known around the world.
The current THL register-based birth cohort data comprises the age groups born in 1987 and 1997. These data resources are still actively utilised in studies related for example to mental health, education and working life as well as the livelihood of families with children.
"The new data reserve will continue the multidisciplinary research enabled by previous birth cohorts.
The data will make it possible for us to determine such things as how prenatal and early childhood factors affect persons’ risk for long-term illnesses. In addition, we can study factors affecting the life cycle and better understand the significance of social, hereditary, and environmental factors for the population well-being and ability to function,” says THL Director General Markku Tervahauta.
New cohort data is needed not only due to the birth of new generations, but also for updating the available population data resources and data collection methods.
The data collection and study methods as well as the possibilities of combining data from different sources are currently evolving rapidly. The first research results based on the new cohort data are expected to be available before the end of this decade.
Accumulating research data improves societal decision-making
Research data that accumulates over time will help societal decision-making. The data can be used to strengthen the Finnish welfare system and hence help in reducing the growth of the social welfare and health care expenditure.
"The initiative covers a broad range of disciplines from the social and educational sciences to the health sciences. These all are needed if we wish to achieve a sufficiently broad understanding of the different elements related to the population well-being and health. This is an exceptionally significant initiative orientating far into the future," says Susanna Pettersson, Managing Director of the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
"This initiative offers families living in Finland a unique opportunity to participate in promotion of the future well-being," Pernaa adds. At the beginning of August 2023, he will take a leave of absence from his current position as Director of Communications at the Institute for Economic Research (VATT).
Further information on the director of the initiative’s preparation phase
Ville Pernaa (b. 1974)
tel. 050 539 4310
- Doctor of Political Science (2002), Docent of the University of Turku (2007), Docent of the University of Jyväskylä (2010), University of Turku Alumnus of the Year (2019)
- VATT's Director of Communications, from which position Pernaa will take a leave from 1 August 2023 to 31 December 2024
- He has worked e.g. as the director of the University of Turku Centre for Parliamentary Studies and as the editor-in-chief of Suomen Kuvalehti.
See also
Finnish Cultural Foundation news item: Solving future problems (in Finnish)
