Effectiveness of social and health services and the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of their integration

In the area of effectiveness of social and health services and the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of their integration, we assess the impact and effectiveness of different treatments, procedures, pharmacotherapies, social work, social welfare services and the integration of these on different customer and patient groups. Our focus is on the root causes of health and well-being, on service processes, on performance and cost-effectiveness and on patient and customer safety.

More about our research in Finnish here.

• EVIDENCING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF HEALTH SOCIAL WORK ASSESSMENT AND INTERVENTIONS (SOSTYÖ-TERVA) study (2021-2023) seeks to address the research question as to how effective social work interventions are in providing integrated service paths, linking hospital services with social care and achieving measurable patient well-being.
• STN IMPRO is a multidisciplinary research project seeking to develop new analysis methods for evaluating health and social services, and to support the development of more equal and cost-effective services. We study the structure, effectiveness and performance of health and social services.
• INCOME SUPPORT AND CHILD PROTECTION project (2021-2023) explores in the Finnish context whether additional income support for economically insecure households reduces the demand for child protection services at the municipality level. The reducing mechanism of additional income support is well studied but mostly in the US context and there are less studies from Europe and particularly from the Nordic countries such as Finland.
• OLD-AGE SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN HOME CARE – PREVALENCE, MEANINGS & INTERVENTION (SOLDEX) project (2021-2025) scrutinizes older people’s formal home care from the perspective of social exclusion. The project examines the prevalence, risk factors and individual meanings of social exclusion in home care clients and how old-age exclusion is addressed in current ageing policies and legislation. 
• PHARMACEUTICAL POLICY RESEARCH GROUP studies pharmaceutical policy reforms and the realization of their objectives and expectations from key perspectives for reform.
• DEPKuopio – HEALTH AND RECOVERY is a multidisciplinary research that aims to examine whether a motivational multicomponent lifestyle intervention as a supportive treatment for depression has effects on recovery from depression, mental well-being, health-related quality of life, or physical health in a primary health care setting. To examine the cost-effectiveness of the intervention is an important study aim as well.