How do common things like nicotine products and hormone treatments affect public health? Cecilia Magnusson is hoping to find out. Meet one of the new professors of Karolinska Institutet who will participate in this year’s installation ceremony at Aula Medica on 8 October.
Text: Karin Tideström, for KI’s installation ceremony booklet 2026
Cecilia Magnusson researches why public health varies over time and why it differs among different communities.
Photo: Erik Flyg
Using Swedish health registers, surveys and advanced data analyses, she studies how white snus and menopausal hormone therapy affect the risk of disease and how the incidence of autism varies among population groups.
“Our hypothesis is that people’s health is shaped by their all-round life situation,” she says.
Her results show, for example, that white snus increases the risk of type 2 diabetes and that hormone therapy can increase the risk of breast cancer. Another conclusion is that the rise in autism diagnoses in Sweden is probably a reflection of societal change.
The aim of her research is to help improve both the quality and equality of public health and healthcare, and to be able to draw early attention among politicians and authorities to potential threats to public health.
About Cecilia Magnusson
Professor of Social Medicine at the Department of Global Public Health as of 15 October 2025
Cecilia Magnusson was born in Södertälje in 1971. She graduated with a medical degree in Uppsala in 1995, earning her PhD from Karolinska Institutet in 1998 with a thesis on breast cancer epidemiology and the influence of hormone-related factors. She combines the post of professor with that of senior physician in community medicine at Region Stockholm’s Centre for Epidemiology and Community Medicine.
