Nordic Countries Research Articles

Limiting access to assisted reproductive technologies for males of advanced age-Pros and cons from a Nordic perspective.

It is not controversial to state that parental age is increasing in several countries. But how to deal with this increase might be. Some Nordic countries have set an upper age limit for females seeking assisted reproduction in their national legislation, but none have done so for males. There are also recommendations in place that restrict access to publicly funded assisted reproduction for both females and males of advanced age in some Nordic countries. As recent data now show somatic and psychiatric health risks related to advanced paternal age, we ask if the time has come for countries to set an upper age limit for males seeking assisted reproduction like there already is for females, and summarize some of the risks and rewards involved in treating couples with advanced age in fertility clinics.

The midlife health of only children: chronic disease indicators and biomarkers by sibship size in three nationally representative UK cohorts.

Despite persistent concerns about only children's disadvantage relative to individuals with siblings, existing health-related evidence is inconsistent. Recent evidence from Nordic countries about only children having poorer health outcomes may not apply elsewhere because selection processes differ across contexts. We investigate the midlife health of only children in the UK where one-child families tend to be socio-economically advantaged relative to large families. Using the 1946, 1958 and 1970 British birth cohort studies, we examine various biomarkers and self-reported measures of chronic disease by sibship size when respondents are aged in their mid-40s, mid-50s and mid-60s. We estimate separate linear probability models for each cohort, age and outcome, adjusting for childhood and early adulthood circumstances. We found no evidence of only children differing from those with one, two or three or more siblings, at any age, in any of the cohorts, on: heart problems, hypertension, high triglycerides, high glycated haemoglobin or high C-reactive protein. However, compared with only children, the probability for cancer (0.019, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.002, 0.035; age 46/1970) and poor general health (0.060, CI: 0.015, 0.127; age 55/1958; and 0.110, CI: 0.052, 0.168; age 63/1946) was higher among those with three or more siblings. There is no consistent pattern of only child health disadvantage for midlife chronic disease outcomes across ages or cohorts in the UK. Research should focus on better understanding how sibship size differentials are contingent on context.

Leveraging NLP for crisis communication management: A case study of news media analysis of the COVID‐19 pandemic in two Nordic countries

AbstractThe news media plays a vital role in influencing public perceptions about topics, issues and crises. They also act as important intermediaries between organizations and public, enabling organizations to shape how people think about crisis topics and actors. Monitoring news coverage and assessing the news media's agenda‐setting role in a crisis can help organizations respond more effectively to emerging situations. When crises are prolonged and affect many countries, media analysis can become a tedious task for crisis managers. This study demonstrates how natural language processing (NLP) methods can be utilized in news media analysis of crisis situations, such as an extended cross‐national pandemic. Specifically, it demonstrates the possibilities of using NLP to identify and compare the salience of diverse crisis topics and how the media treat these topics and crisis actors (first‐ and second‐level agenda‐setting) across countries, news outlets, and time. The COVID‐19 pandemic serves as an illustrative case study to showcase the application of NLP techniques to provide insights into public perceptions of a major health crisis shaped by the news media in two Nordic countries (Finland and Sweden). Findings show the suitability of NLP methods to detect nuanced differences in news media coverage and offer relevant knowledge of how public perceptions and responsibility attribution fluctuate across time and countries.

Solar Flow Battery for Grid Innovation: Exploring Novel Cell Designs and Osmotically Balanced Neutral pH Electrolytes

The demand for clean and efficient energy with low carbon emissions has been increased continuously. In 2022, 29.9% of global electricity production came from renewable energy sources, and the UK contributed a relatively high percentage of 41.5%. However, it appears to lag behind the Nordic countries, showing an impressive 81.2% of its electricity from renewable sources. The primary hurdle to expanding the share of renewable energy is intermittency. There is a crucial need for research and development in energy storage systems to enhance this aspect. Among various renewable energy storage technologies, redox flow battery (RFB) has recently come into the spotlight because of its scalability, long-term storage capability, and fast kinetics. However, the highly concentrated acidic condition and high voltage of the conventional RFB electrolytes make applying this technology for the integration of Photovoltaic cells difficult. Here, we report a, efficient solar-rechargeable redox flow battery (SRFB) with significantly enhanced safety and stability. Particularly, we introduce a competitive osmotically-balanced neutral pH aqueous Iodine/Bromine electrolyte combination, which has not been used for solar-to-electricity storage technologies. The present work holds great potential for safe and reliable charging/discharging operations to existing photovoltaic-assisted battery technologies. These results promote the utilization of existing solar cell facilities and are a cornerstone for the development of SFBs for practical and efficient energy storage devices.

Psychotropic drug use among children and adolescents in the Nordic countries: a systematic review.

The Nordic countries have rather homogenous populations and similar health care systems, and one could therefore expect comparable levels of psychopathology and psychotropic drug use. However, recent studies show pronounced variations in psychotropic drug use among children and adolescents from different Nordic countries. Therefore, we aimed to conduct a systematic review of the literature examining the use of psychotropic drugs among children and adolescents in the Nordic countries. This review followed PRISMA guidelines. We searched PsycINFO, EMBASE and MEDLINE for population-based studies published 2010 or later that investigated prevalent or incident use of antidepressants, psychostimulants, antipsychotics, hypnotics, anxiolytics, and mood stabilizers among 0-19-year-olds in the Nordic countries. Two reviewers assessed all studies. Twenty-two out of 2142 eligible studies were included in the final review covering data collected from 1995 to 2018. The use of psychotropic drugs, except for anxiolytics, increased in most of the Nordic countries, but at different rates. Prevalent use of antidepressants was two to four times higher among Swedish children and adolescents compared to Danish and Norwegian peers. Prevalent use of psychostimulants, on the other hand, was two to sixfold higher in Iceland compared to the other Nordic countries. Finally, the prevalence of antipsychotic use was threefold higher in Finland compared to Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. This systematic review provides a thorough overview of psychotropic treatment of youths in the Nordic countries. We demonstrate a pronounced national variation in use of psychotropics that should be addressed further to facilitate rational pharmacotherapy in youths with psychiatric disorders.

Helicopter emergency medical services in Iceland between 2018 and 2022-A retrospective study.

Helicopter emergency services (HEMS) are widely used to bring medical assistance to individuals that cannot be reached by other means or individuals that have time-critical medical conditions, such as chest pain, stroke or severe trauma. It is a very expensive resource whose use and importance depends on local conditions. The aim of this study was to describe flight and patient characteristics in all HEMS flights done in Iceland, a geographically isolated, mountainous and sparsely populated country, over a 5-year course. This retrospective study included all individuals requiring HEMS transportation in Iceland during 2018-2022. The electronic database of the Icelandic Coast Guard was used to identify the individuals and register flight data. Electronic databases from Landspitali and Akureyri hospitals were used to collect clinical variables. Descriptive statistics was applied. The average number of HEMS transports was 3.5/10,000 inhabitants and the median [IQR] activation time and flight times were 30 min [20-42] and 40 min [26-62] respectively. The vast majority of patients were transported to Landspitali Hospital in Reykjavik. More than half of the transports were due to trauma, the most common medical transports were due to chest pain or cardiac arrests. Advanced medical therapy was provided for 66 (10%) of individuals during primary transports, 157 (24%) of individuals were admitted to intensive care, 188 (28%) needed surgery and 53 (7.9%) needed a coronary angiography. In Iceland, the number of transports is lower but activation and flight times for HEMS flights are considerably longer than in other Nordic countries, likely due to geographical features and the structure of the service including utilizing helicopters both for HEMS and search and rescue operations. The transport times for some time-sensitive conditions are not within standards set by international studies and guidelines.

Current aspects of the quality of head and neck cancer care – survey of the Scandinavian Society for Head and Neck Oncology

Background All Nordic countries have national cancer registries collecting data on head and neck cancer (HNC) incidence and survival. However, there is a lack of consensus on how other quality aspects should be monitored. Aims We conducted a web-based survey to find opportunities for quality control and improvement. Methods A web-based survey was sent to one otorhinolaryngology – head and neck (ORL–HN) surgeon, and one oncologist at each Nordic university hospital treating HNC. In total, 42 responses from all 21 university hospitals were included. Results In over half of the university hospitals, an oncologist, an ORL—HN surgeon, a pathologist, a radiologist, and a specialized nurse was always present at the multidisciplinary tumor board (MTB) meeting. Of 42 respondents 35 (83%) agreed that treatment delays were systematically recorded for each patient. Eleven of 21 (52%) oncologists agreed that side-effects of (chemo)radiotherapy were systematically recorded. Less than half of the respondents agreed that complications of surgery, and post-treatment quality of life (QOL) were systematically recorded. Conclusions In the Nordic countries, the importance of HNC treatment timelines is well acknowledged. There is a lack of consensus on the composition of MTB meeting, and how treatment-related morbidity should be monitored outside clinical trials.

Laryngeal cancer relative survival trends from 1972 to 2021 in the Nordic countries.

Changes in treatment approaches, characterised by the shift from laryngectomy to a focus on organ-preserving methods may have potentially resulted in lower survival. We aim to identify differences in survival trends for laryngeal cancer (LC) in the Nordic countries over a period of 50 years, and discuss the potential impact of factors such as changes in treatment protocols. Five-year relative survival (RS) data from 1972 to 2021 were obtained from the NORDCAN database 2.0 which included 33,692 LC cases, of which 85% were diagnosed among men. In the NORDCAN database, the age-standardised RS is calculated using the Pohar Perme estimator with individual International Cancer Survival Standards weights. Joinpoint regression models were used to assess potential shifts in trend over the years in RS. While Denmark and Norway demonstrated an increasing trend in 5-year RS from 1972 to 2021, in Finland and Sweden, the 5-year RS among men remained static, without any discernible significant trend. Over the 30-year period from 1992-1996 to 2017-2021, RS improved by 9, 4, 13, and 2 percentage points in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, respectively. Among women in Sweden, a linear negative trend was observed, noticeable as a 16 percentage-point decline in 5-year RS from the earliest to the latest period. The underlying causes for the differences in survival trends remain unclear. Besides differences in treatment protocols, several other factors can affect RS making the interpretation of RS trends challenging.

Survival improvements in esophageal and gastric cancers in the Nordic countries favor younger patients.

Esophageal cancer (EC) and gastric cancer (GC) are fatal cancers with a relatively late age of onset. Age is a negative risk factor for survival in many cancers and our aim was to analyze age-specific survival in EC and GC using the recently updated NORDCAN database. NORDCAN data originate from the Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish nationwide cancer registries covering years 1972 through 2021 inviting for comparison of 50-year survival trends between the countries. Relative 1- and 5-year survival and 5/1-year conditional survival (i.e., survival in those who were alive in Year 1 to survive additional 4 years) were analyzed. Survival in EC showed large gains for patients below age 80 years, 5-year survival in Norwegian men reaching 30% and in women over 30% but for 80-89 year old survival remained at 10%. In contrast, hardly any gain was seen among the 80-89 year patients for 1-year survival and small gains in 5 year and 5/1-year survival. Survival gaps between age-groups increased over time. For GC there was also a clear age-related negative survival gradient but the survival gaps between the age groups did not widen over time; Norwegian male and female 5-year survival for 80-89 year old was about 20%. The age-specific survival difference in GC arose in Year 1 and did not essentially increase in 5-year survival. While there were differences in survival improvements between the countries, poor survival of the 80-89 year old patients was shared by all of them. To conclude, survival has improved steadily in younger GC and EC patients in most Nordic countries. While the 80-89 year old population accounts for nearly a quarter of all patients and their poor survival depressed overall survival, which can therefore be increased further by improving diagnostics, treatment and care of elderly EC and GC patients.

Age-Specific Survival in Lung Cancer in the Nordic Countries through a Half Century

Age-Specific Survival in Lung Cancer in the Nordic Countries through a Half Century

Agile transformation in the energy sector: empowering autonomous teams

Purpose This study aims to explore how to structure an energy organization to be more agile in the context of digitalization and find the common success factors and challenges the organizations face to transform. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative multiple-case study of an energy company and an online market company, both from the Nordic countries, was conducted in 2023. Data were collected through in-depth individual interviews with 16 participants. Findings This research provides valuable insights into the challenges and critical success factors crucial for a successful digital transformation. The study illuminates the interplay between technological advancements and organizational shifts, the adoption of agile methodologies, the importance of inclusive leadership and the integration of autonomous teams in realizing digital transformation goals. The research emphasizes the profound impact of these factors on the transformational journey within organizations. In particular, the adoption of agile methodologies takes on heightened significance in the swiftly evolving business landscape of today, calling for a transition from project-centric approaches to more adaptive and sustainable product-centric models. Originality/value The study contributes to the practice and enhanced understanding of organizing business and technology teams in energy companies to achieve fast flow. The analysis and discussion of various empirical findings shed light on the success factors and challenges of digital transformation – issues that many organizations are currently or will likely soon be grappling with. The impact of different organizational structures on agility in an organization has yet to be thoroughly studied.

The Nordic Investment Bank: The Evolution of an International Institution

Abstract The Nordic Investment Bank (nib) is an international financial institution created in 1975 by the Nordic Council of Ministers to promote investment projects and exports in the Nordic region. In 1998, a new Agreement and Statutes replaced the previous ones and established the international character of the institution. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, nib started to provide financing to the Baltic states which in 2004 became full members under a new Agreement. The three establishing treaties have marked the evolution of nib: first, a common institution of the Nordic countries; then, an international financial institution of the Nordic countries; and, finally, a Nordic-Baltic international financial institution. In this process, a key point is to appreciate whether and to what extent nib has continuously operated as a legal entity across the succession of establishing treaties.

Fantasised and fantastical Nordic imaginaries: Contextualising Nordic life vlogs by East Asian YouTube vloggers

Abstract Nordic life vlogs are a popular genre among avid watchers of YouTube influencers across East Asia. The vlogs showcase “a slice of life” content, documenting the simple living, daily routines, beautiful landscapes, cultural festivals, and everyday norms of what it is like to live in the Nordic region. While there are many Nordic life vloggers, in this article, we focus on a subset: young immigrant women from Japan and South Korea living in the Nordics. By attending to the genre, content, and interactions between vloggers and viewers, we explore how female East Asian YouTube vloggers who have immigrated to Nordic countries construct fantasised and fantastical narratives around Nordic imaginaries. The discussion of multifaceted layers of Nordic imaginaries explains how Nordic life vlogs serve as a platform for young East Asian women to project their desire for a better life and cultivate subtle resilience at the juncture of postfeminism and postcolonialism.

Nordic inflammatory bowel disease treatment strategy trial: protocol for the NORDTREAT randomised controlled biomarker-strategy trial

IntroductionThe absence of reliable prognostic markers poses a challenge to the management of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Patients with aggressive disease may not receive sufficient treatment with conventional ‘step-up’ therapy,...

Mapping the Nordic Research Landscape for the period 2016-2020: a comprehensive study of research outcomes, collaborations, and impact.

This article aims to study the research outcomes of five Nordic countries in terms of research publications, spend on R&D, outcomes and collaborations as these are important parameters to understand research thrust of the countries/regions, in addition to their innovation capability. The research outcomes of the Nordic countries in terms of the total number of publications, coauthored publications, publications with corporate collaborators, citations, the Field Weighted Citation Index (FWCI) and publications in different subject areas were retrieved using Scopus and its associate SciVal. The research outcomes were extracted for five years from 2016-2020. In addition, total population, researcher population and research spend of these countries have been obtained from World Bank data available for the year 2021. The analysis showed that Sweden has the highest population and the highest number of researchers in this region. All countries have the highest number of coauthored publications with the United States, followed by the United Kingdom, except Iceland, which has the second highest number of coauthored publications with Sweden. Denmark, followed by Iceland, stands prominent with reference to having publications with corporate collaborations. Denmark and Sweden have a high percentage of articles in first quartile journals, which is above the average for Nordic countries. Iceland stands at the top with the highest citations, which is depicted by high FWCI. Across subject areas, the Nordic countries have maximum publications in life sciences. Other prominent subject areas include technology and natural sciences. On analysing the research landscape of Nordic countries, maximum research output is in the field of life sciences and medicine, and most of the coauthored publications of these countries are with the United States. Denmark, with its exemplary research output, excels with maximum papers in top quartile journals and with maximum corporate collaborations and the highest FWCI.

Water quality for citizen confidence: The implementation process of 2020 EU Drinking Water Directive in Nordic countries

Water quality for citizen confidence: The implementation process of 2020 EU Drinking Water Directive in Nordic countries

The 1975 Icelandic ‘Women’s day off’ in Nordic print media

ABSTRACT In October 1975, the Icelandic women’s movement organized a ‘Women’s Day Off’ (WDO), a one-day strike designed to reveal the societal importance of women’s work. In this article, we explore media coverage of the WDO in the Nordic countries. Through an analytical lens that focuses on media framing and journalistic practices, we analyse differences in the coverage’s scope and content. We also contextualize the coverage against the background of sociopolitical factors that may have affected the cultural filtering of the news, as well as journalistic practices and resources in each country. In doing so, we demonstrate that the coverage relied on each newsroom’s estimation of the event’s newsworthiness for local readers. That news value was influenced by the country in question’s cultural proximity to Iceland, the state of local feminist organizing and public discussions regarding gender equality, and other news topics in circulation at the time. Our analysis is based on a reading of media texts related to the WDO that we gathered using digital interfaces of the national libraries of Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, complemented by a manual search in cases where such digitization was lacking.

Separable and controlled direct effects for competing events: Estimation of component specific effects on sickness absence.

In many settings, it is reasonable to think of treatment as consisting of a number of components, either because this is the case in practice or because it is conceptually possible to decompose treatment into separate components due to the way in which it exerts effects on the outcome of interest. For competing events, the treatment decomposition idea has recently been suggested to separate effects of treatments on the outcome of interest from effects mediated through competing events using so-called separable effects. Like the idea of separating effects of exposure, it has been pointed out that ideas from mediation analysis generally may help to clarify the interpretation of existing estimands used in competing events settings. One example is the use of the controlled direct effect, to conceptualize the effects of interventions preventing the competing event from occurring. In this article, we identify the controlled direct effect as a component specific effect and discuss the merits of this estimand when the prevented event is non terminal and other methods of effects separation are problematic. Our motivating example is the study of a policy initiative, introduced in 2001, aimed at reducing long term sickness absence (SA) in Norway. The initiative consists of different components, one being to encourage use of graded SA, which is considered a key tool in the Nordic countries to reduce long term SA. The analysis makes use of longitudinal registry data for 113 808 individuals, followed from the time of first SA.

Sports Journalists as Agents of Change: An International Academic Perspective

Sports journalists can act as agents of change in society since they have a unique and powerful platform to influence public opinion, raise awareness, advocate for various issues through their reporting and commentary, and overall promote positive change in society. This is perhaps more obvious when looking at recent research from the Nordic countries. However, are sports journalists able to be, and do they even wish to be, agents of change in countries such as Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Spain, Germany, and Israel? Based on academic writing and interviews with media and sports scholars, this article examines the academic discourse that tries to assess to what extent sports journalism may be professionalized in a select number of countries in the European Union and the Middle East. Respondents were asked to speak about how they, as academics, perceived the extent to which sports journalists in each country have substantial autonomy from the economic and political systems and to what extent they are agents of change in their country.

Sports Journalists as Agents of Change in Nordic Countries

Sports Journalists as Agents of Change: Shifting Political Goalposts in Nordic Countries identifies and describes changes prevalent in political narratives of sports journalism. Although tensions between professional autonomy and commercial influences in sports journalism persist, shifts in public expectations and increased interest in investigative journalism present new possibilities for sports journalists to reshape this field. The research in this thematic issue examines media content and considers how sports journalists reflect on their role, how gender issues are tied to, and addressed by, that role, and how critical sports journalism develops through engagement with relevant national and international sports journalist associations.