Background – Over the last decades alcohol intake has decreased among the Swedish men but been on the rise among the women, thus leading to an increased risk of alcohol dependence (AD) and related consequences among the Swedish women. The aim of this study was therefore to compare the mortality between women with AD and population-matched controls. Method – Data were retrieved from the medical records of 2, 037 women with AD at the Addiction Centre in Malmö in 1970–2013 and followed up until 2019. They were matched by sex, age, and calendar year with a control group from the general population in Region Skåne. For persons who died during follow-up, death certificates were obtained from the national registers to obtain time and cause of death. The mortality was compared between the groups as observed vs. expected, cumulative survival was assessed by comparing the survival rates of the women with AD to those of the control group. The cumulative survival was calculated as observed compared to expected. Results – The cumulative survival and standardized life expectancy were significantly reduced for the women with alcohol dependence compared to the matched controls; T1/2 = 21 vs. 11, p < 0.05 and OR 1.9 CI 1.73–2.02, respectively. More women with alcohol addiction passed away due to accidental and intended causes of death (15.5% vs. 2.8%, p < 0.05). Their cause-specific mortality was significantly increased for mental health disorders, respiratory and digestive diseases, but significantly lower for cardiovascular and cancer diseases. Conclusion – This study showed that the mortality among Swedish women with long term alcohol dependence was significantly increased, thereby suggesting a need for a special focus on this group.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the public health and the economy of the Swedish population, with disproportionate effects on communities living in socioeconomically diverse neighborhoods. To mitigate these impacts and enhance outreach, COVID-19 diagnostic and prevention services supported by digital health tools were introduced for early diagnosis and prevention. Assessing the perceptions related to utilization of these efforts is essential to ensure they are benefiting the particular populations living in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Therefore, the aim of this study was to demonstrate available COVID-19 diagnostic tools and explore the implementation of COVID-19 diagnostics and the digital support services from the experiences of lay health promoters (LHPs) in a socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhood in Malmö. Method: Five LHPs participated in an online focus group via Zoom, in May 2021. The session began with an online presentation of testing procedures, followed by discussion to gather user perspectives. The data was analyzed using the Rapid Identification of Themes from Audio recordings method. Results: Health promoters reported a lack of trust in existing COVID self-test procedures due to validity issues and frequent false-negative results. Polymerase chain reaction testing procedures were deemed inadequate because of delays in receiving results. Additionally, the neighborhood faced barriers to vaccination access, including challenges in using digital technology to book test and vaccination, distance to vaccination centers, and unavailability of slots. Conclusion: This study highlights the need for affordable and easy-to-use COVID-19 test alternatives in these neighborhoods. The implementation of digital healthcare solutions during the pandemic faced significant challenges, limiting access to care and support in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Therefore, implementing digital healthcare initiatives for disease diagnosis and prevention at the national level requires strategic planning that considers the needs and capabilities of residents in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas. Furthermore, the importance of increasing targeted vaccination centers and educating community representatives, such as health promoters, to better support their communities during crises, was emphasized.

This presentation will share insights from a participatory digital health promotion initiative in Lindängen, Malmö, where residents are co-developing a mobile based digital tool to promote oral health and diet. The project brings together Design Thinking and Participatory Action Research to address challenges of digitalisation in a socially and economically disadvantaged neighbourhood. Although these approaches come from different fields, they share key features. Both are iterative, collaborative, and grounded in local contexts. They prioritise the knowledge and experiences of those most affected. In this project, they support a process where residents are not just participants but co-creators of digital solutions. Design Thinking has helped structure the process from identifying needs to generating ideas and developing prototypes. Participatory Action Research has kept the work rooted in the lived experiences of residents, especially women from families with young children.

Through photo voice workshops and community mapping, participants identified barriers to oral health including limited access to culturally tailored care, language and literacy challenges, and difficulty understanding preventive practices. Diet also emerged as a concern, especially the lack of accessible, culturally relevant dietary information. These insights led to materials such as multilingual hygiene tips, community made brushing videos, and diet related content. Drawing on Freire’s concept of conscientisation,participants reflected critically on their everyday realities, questioned assumptions, and identified knowledge gaps. In dialogues with the women, oral health is no longer discussed as a set of instructions from the dentist, but as part of a broader conversation about access,hygiene routines and everyday struggles. This awareness is shaping the digital tool as a space where knowledge is built collectively, grounded in lived experience and shaped by community priorities.

This presentation will also reflect on practical challenges such as time, facilitation, and sustainability, and what it can teach about inclusive digital health development.

Background: Children with migration background, living in socio-economically disadvantaged areas, are exposed to numerous risk that can negatively affect their well-being. Understanding which key factors build and enable well-being of children with these experiences are therefore essential to support and strengthen their positive development and possibilities to feel well. Studies that include children’s own perspectives and voices in initiatives that concerns them is however scarce, and there is an increased need for participation of children with diverse experiences and life situations in research and knowledge production. Therefore, the aim of this study was to, through a participatory process, explore and enhance the understanding of key factors in the social context that contribute to child well-being among children with a migration background.

Methods: Thirty-one children, aged 9–12, from three disadvantaged areas in Malmö, Sweden, participated together with researchers in a Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) team, exploring factors related to their well-being in their social context. Multi-stage focus groups were held over a year (2023–2024), with different sessions facilitating dialog on the research topic. In total, 49 sessions took place, each on average duration of 1.5 h. The data were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis.

Results: Four main themes, representing key factors related to child well-being, were identified: Enriching Leisure Time, Resourceful Places, Belonging to a Community and Welfare System and Rights. The themes covered structural aspects, such as school, healthcare and human rights, but also more personal dimensions, like close relations and the near environment, related to Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory of human development.

Conclusion: The dialogs with the children provided a deeper understanding and a holistic view of the perceptions of children with migration backgrounds residing in socio-economically disadvantaged areas regarding essential factors for their well-being. Future research should focus on developing strategies that ensure children’s access to the factors they have identified as fundamental to their well-being. Our study has further shown that it is pivotal to ensure children’s inclusion and participation in health promotion initiatives. These initiatives need to be contextually relevant and work toward building community capacity, to promote child well-being.

Sweden was one of the first countries to bring the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into national law. However, realizing these rights has been challenging, especially among children in vulnerable situations. Barriers, including language, limit their opportunities to be heard, and when they are included, it is often symbolic or tokenistic.

Despite interest in involving children more authentically, adults working in research and policy often lack understanding of how children themselves experience participation.

Thus, there is a need for tools that are not only evidence-based, but also easy for children to understand and use. The Dutch Learning Network, with young people and participatory researchers, developed such guidelines which was later re-fined by researchers in Kids in Action Network. The study aimed to validate and socio-culturally adapt these guidelines together with children in disadvantaged neighborhoods in Sweden.

This research involved children aged 9–12 from an ongoing community-based participatory pro-gram at a leisure-time center in disadvantaged neighborhoods of Malmö.

Participants were purposefully selected due to their prior experience as co-researchers in the Community-Based Participatory Research program and a pre-existing trust-based relationship with the researcher. By integrating Freire’s critical pedagogy with participatory methods, the research process facilitated children in questioning,reinterpreting and reshaping the original guidelines. This approach moved beyond symbolic inclusion, fostering genuine, transformative participation rooted in dialogue and shared meaning-making The children in this study emphasized that participatory research guidelines should prioritize honesty, emotional safety, and equality. They also suggested avoiding complex language, and using creative, engaging formats to better connect with other children in similar contexts. In this interactive presentation, we will explore how children adapted the guidelines through a child-centered, participatory process. We will share both the theoretical and methodological foundations of this approach, along with key insights and reflections contributed by the children themselves.

OBJECTIVE: To translate the Verran Professional Governance Scale© (VPGS©) into Swedish, adapt it to the Swedish context, and validate it.

BACKGROUND: Magnet®-recognized hospitals have proven successful in reversing negative trends regarding nursing shortage. A change in organizational and management structures is required, and professional governance is fundamental. However, in a Swedish context, there are no validated instruments to measure professional governance.

METHODS: The instrument was translated from English to Swedish and synthesized into a unified version. It was back translated, discussed in an expert panel, and pilot tested with cognitive interviews of nurses.

RESULTS: A new Swedish version of the VPGS© was developed. The expert group reached a consensus, and the scale-level Content Validity Index value shows high relevance. Some words and sentences were revised, and an introduction was added.

CONCLUSIONS: The study generated a Swedish version of the VPGS©, which can be used to measure nurses' perceptions of professional governance behaviors.

INTRODUCTION: Research suggests that participating in after-school leisure activities has been related to promoting health, well-being and safety among children living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The United Nations Child Rights Convention emphasises the inclusion of children in decisions that concern them. However, children seldom are involved in designing implementing and evaluating health promotional environments. The aim of this programme is through a participatory process with children, parents/guardians, and peer-activity leaders explore, measure and evaluate the impact on children's overall well-being related to the social context in an already established health promotion environments in Southern Sweden.

METHODS AND ANALYSIS: The project is based on a previously implemented unique community-based participatory research (CBPR) model for equal health in three socially disadvantaged areas in Malmö. All activity house (AAH) is a meeting place for children established in schools but after school time by the culture department of the Malmö municipality. In AAH migrant children participate in need-driven after school activities that they themselves create and develop. To increase participation of the children and ensure that these environments are based on their needs, 30 children (10-12 years), parents/guardians (30), peer-activity leaders (15), and researchers create CBPR teams in the areas and engage in a participatory process. The children reflect, analyse and write about their well-being; identify and discuss key factors in an iterative process, which also includes a strategic group of stakeholders. The children then develop and validate (with 100 other children from AAH) the Socioculturally Aligned Survey Instrument for Children survey inspired by the KIDSSCREEN V.27. The survey tool so developed will further be used to evaluate AAH and will be distributed to all children participating in their activities.

ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: This programme has been approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority. The results from this programme will be published as reports and scientific publication.

The lack of culturally and contextually oriented interventions promoting physical activity (PA) has led to increased physical inactivity among women living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in Sweden. In this study one such intervention informed by community-based participatory research (CBPR) has been evaluated among 34 women from a disadvantaged neighbourhood before and during COVID-19. Health-related quality of life (HRQOL), behavioural and biomedical outcomes were assessed directly prior and post-intervention, followed by evaluations at 6-months and 18-months follow-up during COVID-19. The results revealed that HRQOL, particularly psychological, social, and environmental health significantly increased post-intervention compared to prior to intervention but reversed back at 6-months follow-up. Perceived health satisfaction and environmental health increased at 18-months follow-up during COVID-19. Participation in PA improved post-intervention and at 6-months follow-up. Everyday activities and fruit and vegetable intake continued to increase through all timepoints. Systolic blood pressure significantly decreased post-intervention and 6-months follow-up; blood flow rate increased significantly at all timepoints. Overall, the findings underscores the potential effectiveness of CBPR approaches in promoting and sustaining healthy lifestyles, even during acute situations such as the COVID-19. It may even serve as a future model for promoting health and addressing health disparities in similar groups.

Background Citizens with low levels of social capital and social status, and relative poverty, seem to have been disproportionally exposed to COVID-19 and are at greater risk of experiencing poor health. Notably, the incidence of COVID-19 was nearly three times higher among citizens living in socially vulnerable areas. Experiences from the African Ebola epidemic show that in an environment based on trust, community partners can help to improve understanding of disease control without compromising safety. Such an approach is often driven by the civil society and local lay health promoters. However, little is known about the role of lay health promoters during a pandemic with communicable diseases in the European Union. This study had its point of departure in an already established Community Based Participatory Research health promotion programme in a socially disadvantaged area in southern Sweden. The aim of this study was to explore how citizens and local lay health promoters living in vulnerable neighbourhoods responded to the COVID-19 pandemic a year from the start of the pandemic.Method In-depth interviews with the 5 lay health promoters and focus group discussions with 34 citizens from the neighbourhood who were involved in the activities within the programme were conducted in autumn 2020. The interviews and focus group discussions were transcribed verbatim and analysed using qualitative content analysis following an inductive approach.Results Four themes emerged including, 'balancing between different kinds of information', 'balancing between place-based activities and activities on social media', 'bridging between local authorities and the communities and community members', and 'balancing ambivalence through participatory dialogues'.Conclusion The study highlights that a Community Based Participatory Research programme with lay health promoters as community trust builders had a potential to work with communicable diseases during the pandemic. The lay health promoters played a key role in promoting health during the pandemic by deepening the knowledge and understanding of the role that marginalised citizens have in building resilience and sustainability in their community in preparation for future crises. Public health authorities need to take the local context into consideration within their pandemic strategies to reach out to vulnerable groups.