Claudia Hanson researches how clinical and public health services can be improved. Among other outcomes, her studies have led to fewer deaths among neonates in Africa. 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
How can health systems be organised in a way that helps healthcare providers deliver better services? This is what Claudia Hanson intends to find out.
Photo: Erik Flyg
By using a combination of epidemiology, sociology, economics and political science, she and her research group analyse how healthcare systems function in different parts of the world – and how they can be improved. An important part of their work is to involve patients, healthcare providers and communities in the development of new solutions and then to evaluate their interventions.
A key aim for Professor Hanson is to reduce the large number of babies that die during childbirth in Africa. She currently leads several international research projects on this theme. In her latest large trial in Benin, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda, they managed to reduce mortality among newborns by 20 per cent.
“The key to our success was engaging healthcare workers in the improvement work,” she says. “Our bottom-up processes helped the maternity teams to innovate local solutions, which then led to major mortality reduction.”
About Claudia Hanson
Professor of Global Health Systems Research at the Department of Global Public Health as of 27 May 2026
Claudia Hanson was born in Iserlohn, Germany, in 1964. She is a trained doctor and specialist in gynaecology and obstetrics. She earned a licentiate degree in family planning in Cameroon in 1999, and after a few years in Tanzania received Master’s degrees in international health (2005) and epidemiology (2007). She earned her PhD at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2013. In 2017, she was appointed senior lecturer at Karolinska Institutet and professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2022.
