Can Liu
About me
I am a perinatal social epidemiologist with a multidisciplinary background. I am motivated to build scientific evidence to inform social and clinical policies that reduce health inequalities. My expertise lies at the intersection of social and medical science. I am specialized in data science, statistical methods, and epidemiological designs. My research focuses on maternal and child health of populations experience disadvantage, e.g. people with disability. I am also interested in understanding how complex dynamic processes in family and the broader social systems affect health and generate health inequalities.
Education background
- Ph.D. Medicine (2017), Karolinska Institutet
- M.Sc. Population Health (2012), Stockholm University
- B.Med. Medicine (2008), Fudan University
Postdoctoral training
- 2019-2021 Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University
- 2017-2019 Department of Medicine, Solna, Karolinska Institutet
Research
I will lead the FORTE funded project "Overlooked Children in Need (ORCHID): A Study on the Development and Well-Being of Children of Parents with Disabilities" in 2024-2026. We aim to examine the association between parental disability and their children’s outcomes, from birth to young adulthood, as well as to evaluate potential contributing and buffering factors, including the policy environment. More information about the project will come soon.
Given my transdeciplinary skills, I have been involved in several projects at the Department of Public Health Sciences, where I can promote knowledge exchanges between the projects and build connections between the topics. I am working in the project "Mental health consequences following the loss of a family member during the Corona pandemic" to examine the pandemic's unintended consequences of grief and related mental health outcomes. I am also working in the research programme "Reproduction of inequality through linked lives (RELINK)" and the research project "Grandchildren of misfortune: The role of resilience for multigenerational patterns of inequality" to examine multi-generational transmission of health. I am involved in "Cancer screening, stage at diagnosis and survival among people with disabilities", "The unequal pandemic: investigating health equity and political responses to covid-19", and "Drivers of inequalities among families involved with child welfare services".
I am also a member of The reproductive, perinatal and pediatric epidemiology research group at the Clinical Epidemiology Division (KEP), Department of Medicine, Solna, Karolinska Institutet.
