Professor Naja Hulvej Rod

Website, ORCID id: 0000-0002-6400-5105

Education and scientific degree

Current employments

Publications

Original publications:  I have published 190 scientific papers in international peer-reviewed journals, of which I have first-authored 31 and last-authored 70. 

Citations: 7357 times cited; h-index: 45

Editorials and letters in peer-reviewed journals: 6

Books and book chapters: 6

Contribution to science

My research deals with large public health challenges including sleep health, health inequality, mental health, and early life adversity. In addition to creating crucial new insights in these areas, I am actively contributing to the advancement the epidemiological methodology with a special focus on causality and complexity. I am the PI of four large projects: the Danish Life Course Cohort (DANLIFE) Study, the Well-being in Hospital Employee Cohort (WHALE) study, the SmartSleep program, and the Corona Minds project. All of which are characterized by combining large data (registers, survey, tracking data) and methods (life course modelling, pattern recognition, quasi-experiments, citizen science) in new and innovative ways, which breaks disciplinary boundaries and goes well beyond state-of-the-art. To embrace complexity in epidemiology, I incorporate complex systems theory thinking and leverage insights across disciplines. I have also been involved in several citizen science project with a direct societal engagement and impact. I have established a strong research group ‘Complexity and Big Data Group’, which has grown considerable during the years due to my successful track record of attracting of external funding. Five recent key publications are listed below. A complete list of my publications is available at My Bibliography.

1. Rod NH, Broadbent A, Rod MH, Russo F, Arah OA, Stronks K. Complexity in Epidemiology and Public Health. Addressing Complex Health Problems Through a Mix of Epidemiologic Methods and Data. 2023;34:505-514.
2. Rod NH, Bengtsson J, Budtz-Jørgensen E, Clipet-Jensen C, Taylor-Robinson D, Nybo Andersen AM, Dich N, Rieckmann A. Trajectories of childhood adversity and mortality in early adulthood: A population-based cohort study. The Lancet 2020;396:489-497.
3. Elsenburg LK, Rieckmann A, Nguyen TL, Bengtsson J, Andersen AN, Taylor-Robinson D, Lange T, Rod NH. Mediation of the parental education gradient in early adult mortality by childhood adversity: a population-based cohort study of more than 1 million children. Lancet Public Health. 2022;7:e146-e155.
4. Otte Andersen T, Skovlund Dissing A, Rosenbek Severinsen E, Kryger Jensen A, Thanh Pham V, Varga TV, Hulvej Rod N. Predicting stress and depressive symptoms using high-resolution smartphone data and sleep behavior in Danish adults. Sleep 2022;45(6):zsac067.
5. RodNH, Bengtsson J, Elsenburg LK, Taylor-Robinson D, Rieckmann. Hospitalisation patterns among children exposed to childhood adversities: a population-based cohort study of half a million children. The Lancet Publ Health 2021;6:e826-e835. 

Leadership

I possess substantial leadership experience, being the Director and founder of the new Copenhagen Health Complexity Center. The Center focuses on integrating complex systems approaches with life course analysis and causal inference methods, involving a diverse team of researchers skilled in epidemiology, medicine, data science, health geography, and social sciences. My previous leadership experience involves having founded and chaired the Section of Epidemiology at the University of Copenhagen from 2018 to 2023. The Section of Epidemiology has thrived under my leadership, evolving into a robust interdisciplinary and international environment dedicated to advancing theoretical epidemiology. During my leadership, successful external funding initiatives and international recruitments resulted in a doubling of the section’s size. Furthermore, I hold the position of Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Copenhagen, where I for years have been leading a vibrant research group, the Complexity and Big Data Group. In addition, I have chaired the graduate educational program in public health and epidemiology at the University of Copenhagen, overseeing the scientific direction of the program, which includes 180 PhD students.

Societal impact

I always strive to ensure the relevance of my research to policymakers and the general public. One notable initiative I initiated was the citizen science research project titled ‘Standing together at a distance: How Danes are living with the Corona Crisis’. This project documented the real-time public health effects of the crisis in Denmark. The insights from the project were important in shaping public debates and government discussions surrounding the reopening of Denmark. Through my work, I have demonstrated a commitment to engaging in creative and inclusive research approaches, involving citizens in the process. This has included collaborations with key stakeholders such as Politiken (a Danish newspaper), DR (Danish Broadcasting Corporation), and Danica Pension. I  also maintain a longstanding research partnership with the Capital Region of Denmark, focusing on stress intervention within workplaces. Furthermore, the SmartSleep project, which investigates the relationship between sleep patterns and young people’s use of digital media, exemplifies my ability to combine cutting-edge research with effective outreach and tangible impact on health policies.

Teaching, supervision and mentoring summaries

I am responsible for PhD-level courses in Causal Inference, Introduction to Complexity Science in Public Health and Quantitative Bias Analyses at the University of Copenhagen. I also give lectures in stress and sleep epidemiology. I am currently supervising one PhD students and I have supervised 19 PhD students, who have been awarded their PhD degree. I have been the main advisor for numerous bachelor and master students in at the University of Copenhagen. More than 10 postdoctoral researchers affiliated with my group over the years.

Grants, awards and honors

I have, in total, received 11.53 million EUR (equivalent to 86.5 mill DKK) in research funds as primary investigator. I was awarded the Elite Research Prize (EliteForsk-prisen) by the Ministry for Higher Education and Science to outstanding researchers  in 2022, and I was awarded the ERC consolidator grant in 2023.

International relations

I believe in internationalization and diversity, and I have continued to broaden my scientific horizon through research stays at international leading institutions (INSERM Paris, UCL London, UCLA Los Angeles), international collaboration (e.g., Harvard, Sorbonne, Karolinska), and through international recruitment. In 2022, I had a 6-month sabbatical at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Amsterdam.

Current or recent membership of Editorial Boards and peer-review

My broad expertise in epidemiology is acknowledged internationally, and I have participated in numerous scientific boards and committees across Europe, including the Swedish Research Council, the Finnish Research Council, and the French Health Data Hub, and I have reviewed several research applications for the European Research Council.

Plenary lectures, keynote talks, and invited talks at international or national meetings

I have been honored with invitations to deliver keynote talks at various prestigious international meetings. Some notable examples of recent keynotes include the Swedish Register-based Research Summit in Stockholm, the Institute of Advanced Studies in Amsterdam, the European Academies of Science in Paris, the 9th Nordic Conference of Epidemiology and Register-based Health Research in Finland, and the Institute of Child Health at University College London.

Naja Hulvej Rod is Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Copenhagen Health Complexity Center at the University of Copenhagen, which is a multi-disciplinary research hub dedicated to developing a systematic scientific approach for understanding and addressing complex public health problems. Her expertise spans various domains including sleep, health inequality, young adult health, and early life adversity, with a focus on health complexity, causal inference, and life course mechanisms. She is leading the interdisciplinary Complexity and Big Data Group, which aims at studying the social and biological factors determining health and disease across the life span. She has a particular interest in complex systems theory and how it intersects with methodological insights from causal inference theory. She has extensive expertise in working with longitudinal datasets and register-based research. She is elected Chair of Council for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, and she has participated in numerous boards and committees across Europe, including the Swedish Research Council, the Finnish Research Council, and the French Health Data Hub. She has been awarded several prestigious grants and awards including the Sapere Aude starting grant, the Elite Researcher Prize 2022, and an ERC consolidator grant.

RESEARCH LEADERSHIP

Primary Investigator of the Danish Life Course (DANLIFE) Cohort (www.danlife.ku.dk), which is a register-based cohort of more than 2 million individuals with multi-dimensional exposome data covering the totality of measured lifetime exposures across multiple social, environmental and biological dimensions to study the health consequences of social and environmental adversities. 

Primary investigator for the citizen science research project ‘Standing together – at a distance: How Danes are living with the Corona Crisis’ (https://coronaminds.ku.dk/), which documents the public health effects of the crisis.

Primary investigator for the SmartSleep program (www.smartsleep.ku.dk), which is a multi-sourced study on mobile phone use, sleep and health.

FIVE KEY PUBLICATIONS

1. Rod NH, Bengtsson J, Budtz-Jørgensen E, Clipet-Jensen C, Taylor-Robinson D, Nybo Andersen AM, PhD, Dich N, Rieckmann A. Trajectories of childhood adversity and mortality in early adulthood: A population-based cohort study. The Lancet 2020;396:489-497.
2. Rod NH, Broadbent A, Rod MH, Russo F, Arah OA, Stronks K. Complexity in Epidemiology and Public Health. Addressing Complex Health Problems Through a Mix of Epidemiologic Methods and Data. Epidemiology 2023 Jul 1;34(4):505-514.
3. Elsenburg LK, Rieckmann A, Nguyen TL, Bengtsson J, Andersen AN, Taylor-Robinson D, Lange T, Rod NH. Mediation of the parental education gradient in early adult mortality by childhood adversity: a population-based cohort study of more than 1 million children. Lancet Public Health. 2022 Feb;7(2):e146-e155. doi: 10.1016/S2468-2667(21)00275-9. PMID: 35122758.
4. Otte Andersen T, Skovlund Dissing A, Rosenbek Severinsen E, Kryger Jensen A, Thanh Pham V, Varga TV, Hulvej Rod N. Predicting stress and depressive symptoms using high-resolution smartphone data and sleep behavior in Danish adults. Sleep 2022 Jun 13;45(6):zsac067. doi: 10.1093/sleep/zsac067. PMID: 35298650.
5. Rod NH, Bengtsson J, Elsenburg LK, Taylor-Robinson D, Rieckmann Hospitalisation patterns among children exposed to childhood adversities: a population-based cohort study of half a million children. The Lancet Publ Health 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(21)00158-4.

PhD courses

• Introduction to complex systems approaches in public health
• Drawing Causal Inference from Epidemiological Data
• Introduction to Directed Acyclic Graphs