Portfolio

Omar Karlsson

Demography, Global Health, Data, Writing

CV

• Information and Contact

Contact: email

Current position: Visiting Research Fellow at Duke University Population Research Institute and Duke Global Health Institute

Experience: Ten years of quantitative research experience. Over 30 peer-reviewed articles published, including in top journals in medicine (eg, the Lancet), epidemiology (eg, International Journal of Epidemiology), and demography (eg, Population and Development Review). Participated in many successful interdisciplinary collaborations, locally and abroad.

Skills: Expert in Stata. Experienced in JavaScript (D3), Excel, R, and Python. Econometric, demographic, and geospatial methods. Pooled household surveys and demographic data. Construct, process, and analyze large datasets. Parallel computing. Excellent written and verbal communication skills. I emphasize accessibility to make my research applicable across disciplines and by decision-makers.

Research interests: I study life expectancy, child health, living standards, and social determinants. Life-course perspectives and the human development framework motivate my research: wellbeing is improved by enhancing capabilities of individuals which are in turn strengthened through promoting opportunities and limiting adversity. This view is inspired by the work of Isaiah Berlin, James Heckman, and Amartya Sen.

More information: CV (pdf)

• Resume

• Publications

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Priority Health Conditions and Global Life Expectancy Disparities
by Karlsson O, Chang AY, Norheim OF, Mao W, Bolongaita S, Jamison DT
in JAMA Network Open, 2025

Epidemiological and demographic trends and projections in global health 1970-2050: Analysis from the 3rd Lancet Commission on Investing in Health, Global Health 2050
by Chang AY, Bolongaita S, Cao B, Castro M, Karlsson O, Mao W, Norheim OF, Ogbuoji O & Jamison DT
in The Lancet, forthcoming

Age Decomposition of Mortality Rates Among Children Younger Than 5 Years in 47 LMICs
by Karlsson O, Pullum TW, Kumar A, Kim R, Subramanian SV
in JAMA Pediatrics, 2025

Trends in low birth weight across 36 states and union territories in India, 1993-2021.
by Karlsson O, Kumar A, Kim R & Subramanian SV
in BMJ Global Health, 2025

Prevalence of severe and moderate anthropometric failure among children in India, 1993–2021
by Narayanan M, Karlsson O, Kumar A, Pullum TW, Kim R, & Subramanian SV
in Maternal Child Nutrition, 2025

Global health 2050: the road to halving premature death by mid-century
by Jamison DT, Summers LH, Chang AY, Karlsson O, Mao W, Norheim OF, Ogbuoji O, Schäferhoff M, Watkins D, Adeyi O, Alleyne G, Alwan A, Anand S, Nigatu Belachew R, Berkley S, Bertozzi S, Bolongaita S, Bundy D, …, & Yamey G
in The Lancet, 2024

Halving premature death and improving the quality of life at all ages
by Norheim OF, Chang AY, Bolongaita S, Barraza-Lloréns L, Fawole A, Gebremedhin LD, González Pier E, Jha P, Johnson E, Karlsson O, Kiros, M, Lewington S, Mao W, Ogbuoji O, Pate M, Sargent J, Tang X, Watkins D, Yamey G, Yip W, Jamison D & Peto R
in The Lancet, 2024

Washing machine ownership and girls' school attendance: a cross-sectional analysis of adolescents in 19 middle-income countries
by Karlsson O & De Neve JW
in Journal of Economic Inequality, 2024

Relationship between adolescent anemia and school attendance observed during a nationally representative survey in India
by De Neve JW, Karlsson O, Rai RK, Kumar S & Vollmer S
in Communications Medicine, 2024

International Trends in Zinc Treatment for Diarrhea
by Karlsson O, Kim R & Subramanian SV
in Pediatrics, 2024

Prevalence and Trends of Not Receiving a Dose of DPT-Containing Vaccine Among Children 12-35 Months: An Analysis of 81 Low- And Middle-Income Countries
by Karlsson O, Rajpal S, Johri M, Kim R & Subramanian SV
in Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health, 2024

Association between neonatal mortality and births not weighed among 400 thousand institutional deliveries in 32 low- and middle-income countries
by Karlsson O, Benski C, Kapoor M, Kim R & Subramanian SV
in Journal of Public Health, 2024

Prevalence of Children Aged 6 to 23 Months Who Did Not Consume Animal Milk, Formula, or Solid or Semisolid Food During the Last 24 Hours Across Low- and Middle-Income Countries
by Karlsson O, Kim R & Subramanian SV
in JAMA Network Open, 2024

Refrigerator ownership and child health and nutrition in low- and middle-income countries
by Karlsson O & Subramanian SV
in Global Food Security, 2023

Patterns in child stunting by age: A cross-sectional study of 94 low- and middle-income countries
by Karlsson O, Kim R, Moloney GM, Hasman A & Subramanian SV
in Maternal and Child Nutrition, 2023

Maternal height and child health and schooling in sub-Saharan Africa: Decomposition and heterogeneity
by Karlsson O & Dribe M
in Social Science & Medicine, 2022

Childhood Diarrhea Prevalence and Uptake of Oral Rehydration Solution and Zinc Treatment in Nigeria
by Egbewale BE, Karlsson O & Sudfeld CR
in Children, 2022

Age Distribution of All-Cause Mortality Among Children Younger Than 5 Years in Low- and Middle-Income Countries
by Karlsson O, Kim R, Hasman A & Subramanian SV
in JAMA Network Open, 2022

Inequality in early life: Social class differences in childhood mortality in southern Sweden, 1815–1967
by Dribe M & Karlsson O
in Economic History Review, 2022

Child wasting before and after age two years: A cross-sectional study of 94 countries
by Karlsson O, Kim R, Guerrero S, Hasman A & Subramanian SV
in EClinicalMedicine, 2022

Estimating heritability of height without zygosity information for twins under five years in low- and middle-income countries: An application of normal finite mixture distribution models
by Karlsson O, Domingue BW, Kim R & Subramanian SV
in SSM - Population Health, 2022

Maternal height-standardized prevalence of stunting in 67 low- and- middle-income countries
by Karlsson O, Kim R, Bogin B & Subramanian SV
in Journal of Epidemiology, 2022

Scarring and selection effects on children surviving elevated rates of postneonatal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa
by Karlsson O
in SSM - Population Health, 2022

Consumption of Vitamin-A-Rich Foods and Vitamin A Supplementation for Children under Two Years Old in 51 Low- and Middle-Income Countries
by Karlsson O, Kim R, Hasman A & Subramanian SV
in Nutrients, 2021

Trends in underweight, stunting, and wasting prevalence and inequality among children under three in Indian states, 1993-2016
by Karlsson O, Kim R, Sarwal R, James KS & Subramanian SV
in Scientific Reports, 2021

Distribution of under-5 deaths in the neonatal, postneonatal, and childhood periods: a multicountry analysis in 64 low- and middle-income countries
by Li, Z, Karlsson O, Kim R & Subramanian SV
in International Journal for Equity in Health, 2021

Children's education and parental old-age health: Evidence from a population-based, nationally representative study in India
by Thoma B, Sudharsanan N, Karlsson O, Joe W, Subramanian SV & De Neve JW
in Population Studies, 2021

Changing speed of reduction in under-5 mortality rates over the 20th century
by Karlsson O, Dribe M & Subramanian SV
in Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 2020

Analysis of Attained Height and Diabetes Among 554,122 Adults Across 25 Low- and Middle-Income Countries
by Teufel F, Geldsetzer P, Manne-Goehler J, Karlsson O, Koncz V, Deckert A, Theilmann M, Marcus M-E, Ebert C, Seiglie JA, Agoudavi K, Andall-Brereton G, Gathecha G, Gurung MS, Guwatudde D, Houehanou C, Hwalla N, Kagaruki GB, Karki KB, Labadarios D, Martins JS, Msaidie M, Norov B, Sibai AM, Sturua L, Tsabedze L, Wesseh CS, Davies J, Atun R, Vollmer S, Subramanian SV, Bärnighausen T, Jaacks LM & De Neve JW
in Diabetes Care, 2020

Geo-mapping of COVID-19 Risk Correlates Across Districts and Parliamentary Constituencies in India
by Subramanian SV, Karlsson O, Zhang W & Kim R
in Harvard Data Science Review, 2020

The effects of economic stress and urbanization on driving behaviours of boda-boda drivers and accidents in gulu, northern uganda: A qualitative view of drivers
by Kitara DL & Karlsson O
in Pan African Medical Journal, 2020

Are out-of-school adolescents at higher risk of adverse health outcomes? Evidence from 9 diverse settings in sub-Saharan Africa
by De Neve JW, Karlsson O, Canavan CR, Chukwu A, Adu-Afarwuah S, Bukenya J, Darling AM, Harling G, Moshabela M, Killewo J, Fink G, Fawzi WW & Berhane Y
in Tropical Medicine & International Health, 2020

The relationship of household assets and amenities with child health outcomes: an exploratory cross-sectional study in India 2015–2016
by Karlsson O, Kim R, Joe W & Subramanian SV
in SSM - Population Health, 2020

Religion and child health in West and Central Africa
by Karlsson O
in Population and Development Review, 2019

Socioeconomic and gender inequalities in neonatal, postneonatal and child mortality in India: A repeated cross-sectional study, 2005-2016
by Karlsson O, Kim R, Joe, W & Subramanian SV
in Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 2019

Antiretroviral therapy coverage associated with increased co-residence between older and working-age adults in Africa
by De Neve JW, Karlsson O, Coetzee L, Schröder H, Subramanian SV, Bärnighausen T & Vollmer S
in AIDS, 2018

Weakening association of parental education: analysis of child health outcomes in 43 low- and middle-income countries
by Karlsson O, De Neve JW & Subramanian SV
in International Journal of Epidemiology, 2018

Journal correspondence and comments

Should India adopt a country-specific growth reference to measure undernutrition among its children? [Comment]
by Subramanian SV, Khailkar A & Karlsson O
in The Lancet Regional Health - Southeast Asia, 2023

Using height-adjusted stunting prevalence will fail disadvantaged children worldwide, authors reply [Correspondence]
by Subramanian SV, Karlsson O & Kim R
in The Lancet Global Health, 2022

Revisiting the stunting metric for monitoring and evaluating nutrition policies [Comment]
by Subramanian SV, Karlsson O & Kim R
in The Lancet Global Health, 2022

Lessons from COVID-19 pandemic for the child survival agenda [Comment]
by Subramanian SV, Chatterjee P & Karlsson O
in Journal of Global Health, 2020

• Presentations

Seminars and Lectures

The German Association for Health Economics, dggö-Talk, online — May 2025. Global Health 2050: The path to halving premature death by mid-century (with Marko Schäferhoff).

Prince Mahidol Award Conference, Side Meeting, Bangkok, Thailand — January 2025 Global Health 2050: Leveraging technological advances to halve premature deaths by 2050 (with Angela Chan and Saeda Makimoto).

Guest lecturer in the Gavin Yamey’s course, Global Health Policy: Transforming Evidence into Action, Duke Global Health Institute, Durham, NC — March 2025. Global Health 2050: The 3rd Report of the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health (CIH 3.0).

Duke University Population Research Institute Seminar Series, Durham, NC, USA — December 2024. Global Health 2050: The path to halving premature death by mid-century.

International Symposium on Precision Public Health, Korea University, online — May 2023. Differences in child mortality and morbidity across the first five years in low- and middle-income countries.

UNICEF Nutrition Master Class, online — November 2021. To what extent is child mortality and wasting prevalence concentrated before age two? Implications for nutrition and health programs.

Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, Friday Luncheon Seminar, Cambridge, MA, USA — February 2020. Household technology and child health.

Development Research Day, Lund University, Sweden — October 2017. Maternal Height and Child Development in sub-Saharan Africa: Mechanisms and Interventions.

Landmark Meeting, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston, USA — August 2017. Temporal Changes in the Association between Parental Education and Child Health: Evidence from 86 Demographic and Health Surveys from 43 Low- and Middle-Income Countries.

Landmark Meeting, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston, USA — November 2016. Influence of Disease Environment in Infancy on Child Health and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Department of Economic History Research Seminar, Lund University, Sweden — March 2016. Intergenerational Transmission of Capabilities: Mother’s and Children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Conference Presentations

Consortium of Universities for Global Health Annual Conference, Los Angeles, CA, USA — March 2024. Life expectancy deficits by cause of death: a life table decomposition.

The Population Association of America Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, USA — April 2023. Anemia severity and school attendance among 251,401 adolescents aged 15–18 years: a nationally representative household fixed-effects study in India.

European Population Conference, Brussels, Belgium — June 2018. Influence of Disease Environment in Infancy on Childhood Health and Education in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Population Association of America Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, USA — April 2018. Religion and Child Health in Sub-Saharan Africa: Religious Affiliation and Community-Level Religious Composition.

The Population Association of America Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL, USA — April 2017. Influence of Disease Environment in Infancy on Child Growth in sub-Saharan Africa. [Poster]

The Population Association of America 2016 Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, USA. — April 2016. Influence of Disease Exposure in Infancy on Childhood Health and Education in sub-Saharan Africa. [Poster]

Africa Population Conference, Pretoria, South Africa — November 2015. Intergenerational transmission of Capabilities: Mothers and Children in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Population Association of America Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA, USA — April 2015. Intergenerational Transmission of Capabilities: Mother’s and Children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Projects

• Data Visualizations

Data Dashboard for the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health

I created (using JavaScript D3) and host an interactive dashboard displaying visualizations of key metrics, trends, and projections for the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health. This allows commissioners to explore data layers and generate displays as needed.

Open dashboard in new tab

• Lancet Commission on Investing in Health

Global health 2050: the path to halving premature death by mid-century

The third report of the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health (CIH) emphasizes that by 2050, all countries can halve the probability of premature death—defined as dying before the age 70 years—through targeted investments in health systems and interventions. This goal, referred to as "50 by 50," is both ambitious and achievable, demonstrated by impressive mortality declines in countries as diverse as Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Iran, Türkiye, Norway, and South Korea.

The report identifies 15 priority health conditions: eight infectious diseases and maternal and child conditions and seven non-communicable diseases and injuries, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and tobacco-related cancers. In the countries with the highest mortality rates, infectious diseases and maternal and child health need to be addressed. All countries need to combat non-communicable diseases and injuries.

The report stresses the importance of strengthening health systems, particularly primary care and first-level hospitals, to manage the 15 priority conditions, by packaging health interventions into 19 modules, such as childhood immunization and cardiovascular disease prevention and treatment, which will help countries tailor their health investments to their specific needs.

Achieving the 50 by 50 goal also requires systemic changes in how countries allocate their health budgets. Many countries fail to direct sufficient resources toward priority interventions. Governments need to redirect budgets toward essential drugs, vaccines, diagnostics, and other commodities needed to reduce mortality from the 15 priority conditions. Procurement systems should be centralized and scaled to ensure that these health products are always available. Tobacco control is highlighted as a critical area, with the report recommending high excise taxes on tobacco and other policies to curb tobacco-related deaths and (initially) raise important revenue.

In addition to national reforms, the report calls for renewed commitments from the international development community. Development assistance should primarily provide financial and technical support to countries with limited resources, to help develop their health systems. It should also finance global public goods, such as combating antimicrobial resistance and preparing for future pandemics. The report stresses that significant advances in health technology—such as vaccines for malaria and tuberculosis—are on the horizon, and scaling up investments in these and other innovations will be crucial to achieving the 50 by 50 goal.

Lancet Commission on Investing in Health website

Main tasks and acheivements

CIH articles I led

CIH articles I co-authored

CIH working papers I co-authored

• UNICEF: When it Matters Most

Improving nutrition and survival for the youngest and most vulnerable children

For this project, I led four scientific studies on the age distribution of important child health outcomes. These studies resulted in four journal publications and a workshop with UNICEF staff.

The first two years after birth are a critical period for growth and development, when malnutrition and infections have the most detrimental impact on child health, as well as human development more broadly. During the first two years, children's bodies and brains are developing rapidly, and they are more susceptible to stunting (low height-for-age) and wasting (low weight-for-height), which significantly increases their risk of death. Malnutrition during this period weakens the immune system, making children more prone to infections, which in turn can exacerbate undernutrition.

The project demonstrated that most child deaths and malnutrition cases are concentrated in children under two years of age. This suggests that prioritizing nutrition programs for this age group could have the greatest impact on reducing child mortality and improving health outcomes. However, the coverage of essential nutrition interventions remains far from complete and highly inequitable, with children from poorer households or rural areas often deprived of the nutrition and care they need. This calls for better strategies to reach the most vulnerable children through well-resourced nutrition programs.

See report by UNICEF based on this project

Main tasks and acheivements

Journal articles I led

• Household Technology and Human Development

Various measures of socioeconomic status exist, such as education, occupation, and income, which reflect different underlying attributes that vary in the ways and degree to which they translate into health. In low- and middle-income countries that lack reliable income data, socioeconomic status is commonly measured by wealth indices, constructed from data on ownership of assets (refrigerator, TV, car, etc) and amenities (electricity, toilet, water, etc). Many of these assets and amenities appear to merely reflect aspects of socioeconomic status (or living standards) without direct links to child health. However, my colleagues and I identified assets related to food preparation and storage as well as water and sanitation, as potential direct determinants of child health.

To further establish linkages, I started a project funded by the Swedish Research Council, to study whether and when household technology can improve nutrition, reduce infections, and reduce child labor, thereby improving child health and education in low- and middle-income countries. For example, refrigerators may improve nutrition by increasing the consumption of protein-rich perishable foods and reduce sickness due to food contamination from improper food storage. Electricity, appliances, and piped water can also reduce the burden from household work, allowing parents to augment incomes from other work, improve the quality of household work (eg, hygiene), and increase direct supervision of children, as well as reducing the need for child labor, enabling children—especially girls—to attend school.

This project advanced understanding of whether household technology can improve child health and education in low- and middle-income countries. A large increase in electricity access and appliance ownership was found. At the population level, both increases in electricity access and refrigerator ownership were suggested to be linked to improved child health and nutrition. Further, by analyzing an extensive data set from 66 countries, one study established that children in households with refrigerators exhibited notable improvements in physical growth, a key indicator of nutrition and infections. Although the effect size was modest, it is significant enough to suggest that refrigerator ownership can play a role in reducing undernutrition and infections by enabling increased consumption and safer storage of perishable foods. Further, another study from the project found tentative evidence that household electricity access positively affects child growth, which appears to be mediated by appliance ownership to an extent.

Another paper resulting from this project unveiled a strong association between washing machine ownership and school attendance among girls and not boys, but only in specific contexts. This underscores the importance of contextual factors in assessing the impact of household technology on educational outcomes. Similarly, another study found that time spent on household work is negatively associated with girls' school attendance in most countries, which further explained a substantial part of the female disadvantage in school attendance. However, the relationship of appliance ownership with household work and school attendance was overall unclear and highly context dependent.

Evidence from this project highlight the potential of refrigerators to improve child nutrition and reduce exposure to infections, as well as time-saving appliances to improve girls' school attendance. These findings can be leveraged to advocate for the financing of trials on the effects of appliance ownership on child health and schooling (eg, through provision or subsidization) across low- and middle-income countries, for gathering further evidence.

Main tasks and acheivements

Journal articles from the project

Pilot study for the project

Presentations and draft papers

• Disparities in Childhood Mortality in Sweden, 1815–1967

Historical demography research on disparities in age-specific under five mortality rates across father’s occupational groups in 19th century Sweden.

Main tasks and acheivements

Journal articles from the project

• Advanced Insights in Anthropometric Health Metrics

In this project I led several studies on height (and co-authored others), investigating what underlies this common measure of health. For example, physical growth, a common measure of child health and development, reflects different processes (eg, diet, infections, and parental height) that may vary in the extent to which they reflect health. My colleagues and I find that at the population level, the prevalence of child growth deficit signals health considerably better after factoring out the influence of maternal height (which is determined by her childhood exposures and genetics and is the strongest observable determinant of child growth). Further, maternal height appears to be linked directly with neonatal mortality while the link between maternal height and mortality later in childhood appears to be related to material living standards and unobserved father characteristics, suggesting that pregnancy and birth related factors are important underlying mechanisms.

Main tasks and acheivements

Journal articles I led

Related journal articles I co-authored

Journal correspondence and comments I co-authored