Martin Persson

Master Degree (2002) in Psychology; PhD (2007) in medical science; Master Degree (2007) in Public Health; Associate Professor (2018) in Health Science; Board Member for European Cleft Organisation (2013); Chair of the COST Action CA16234 European Cleft and Craniofacial Initiative for Equality in Care.

Research

One of the research interests I have is about body image dissatisfaction. This can result from disfigurement or the consequence of perceived social pressure to conform to unrealistic and narrow beauty ideals, indiscriminately affects the mental and physical health of a significant and growing proportion of our population. Those with disfigurement also experience social discrimination that negatively impacts on personal aspirations, education and work opportunities. As medical advances improve the survival rates of those born with or who acquire a disfigurement, and the demand for cosmetic interventions and psychological support increases, professionals from diverse health and social care areas are increasingly being exposed to the challenges of identifying and addressing the needs of patients burdened by complex and unique psychosocial issues. These professionals are perfectly placed to ameliorate these issues but report that they often lack the necessary expertise to help and therefore patient access to expert support is inadequate. Therefore, I have been involved as the coordinator in many European project that focuses upon developing training resources for healthcare professionals, teachers and other relevant stakeholder so they can gain the necessary skills to provide better support.

I publish in academic peer-review journals and over the last 15 years has facilitated a variety of keynotes, lectures, workshops and symposiums for professionals, students and users in my areas of expertise in Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. My research experience over the last 17 years includes epidemiological and population-based studies together with large national multicentre observational and cohort studies. I have also been involved in studies using quantitative and qualitative approaches as well as conducting project evaluations.

How disadvantaged groups are treated in society

Another area that I care about is the equality of care provision in our society and with an especial focus upon those individuals that belong to socially disadvantaged groups.
I often work in a European or international context and a project that highlights that is the on-going COST Action CA16234 European Cleft and Craniofacial Initiative for Equality in Care, which includes 27 countries. The focus of the Action is to ensure that children born with orofacial clefts and other craniofacial conditions receive optimum multidisciplinary care enabling them to grow up like any other child and attain equal status within their societies. Europe currently lacks a harmonized approach to evaluate access to care, the current provision of care, the impacts on key areas of the affected families and society at large, especially in relation to inequalities and social determinant factors. One of the aims of the Action is to evaluate how cleft and/or craniofacial teams are functioning on the following levels:
a) The primary level: the patient as the beneficiary;
b) The level of the organizational context: the multidisciplinary team;
c) The level of funding and policies: administration and resources.

Implement changes in healthcare organizations

A new interest is also how do we facilitate change in healthcare organisation since in order to improve our provision of care, we need to devise a more efficient and sustainable healthcare system. Then it is essential to be able to implement change and monitoring the outcomes and at the same time numerous studies show that implementing the proposed changes in a health care setting remains fragmented, inconsistent and not efficient. Based on that we generated a new European project "Health Innovation, implementation and Impact (HI3) - A functional training program on how to implement sustainable change in the health care system on a clinical level". It aims to develop a training material for healthcare managers and healthcare professionals as well as students. This will be achieved by the collaboration of partners from eight countries.

Collaboration

Over my years I have gained extensive knowledge of working with socially disadvantaged groups across Europe as well as specialising in the methodological and pedagogical development of courses ranging from basic to advance level in psychology, public health and health education. These experiences had been gained from research and teaching together with coordinating and managing over 35 international projects that has attracted over €10 million funding to support activities in psychosocial, health and educational areas.

Current projects

Health Innovation, implementation and Impact (HI3) - A functional training program on how to implement sustainable change in the health care system on a clinical level.

Act Now - A training program development for healthcare professionals to use the principles of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to facilitate patient adjustment to the challenges of living with a visible difference

Up & Go - A training program development for organisations who would like to provide better inclusion of youths with Down syndrome, especially in relation to physical activities and social inclusion.

COST Action CA16234
European Cleft and Craniofacial Initiative for Equality in Care

Cutting Edge Training: Optimising medical outcomes for patients undergoing appearance altering procedures via innovative training of health care professionals

IHEM: Improving the long-term outcomes in children with congenital anomalies by implementing an Innovative Health Educational Module for staff in health care and NGO settings

When Looks Get in the Way: Optimising patient outcomes through the training of health care professionals

COST Action IS1210
Appearance Matters

Publications