About

Heini portrait Nov 2022

Researcher at the Institut national d’études démographiques (INED), France, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and Demography of the Global South units.

Previously Lecturer in Social Statistics and Demography at the University of Southampton, UK.

I completed my PhD thesis ‘A Life Course Perspective to Abortions in Finland’ at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2016.

Associate Editor in Demographic Research and previously also in Reproductive Health journal.

Download my CV from this link: CV Vaisanen May 2023 (PDF).

Research interests

  • Social demography.
  • Sexual and reproductive health with emphasis on induced abortions, miscarriages and pregnancy intentions over the life course.
  • The effect of sexual and reproductive events over the life course on health and wellbeing later in life.
  • Longitudinal, multilevel and event-history modelling as well as other quantitative research methods

ERC Starting Grant

Social Inequalities in the risk and aftermath of miscarriage, 01/2024-12/2028, see abstract.

Prizes and awards

  • The British Society for Population Studies (BSPS) Early Career Award 2021.
  • European Society for Health and Medical Sociology (ESHMS) conference 2016: best paper prize with paper ‘Timing of abortions, births and relationship transitions in Finland’.
  • The British Society for Population Studies (BSPS) annual meeting Best student poster award in 2014 with ‘The association between education and induced abortion in Finland: a cohort perspective’.
  • The British Society for Population Studies (BSPS) Prize 2013 for best student dissertation or essay with my master’s dissertation at LSE ‘Social Inequalities and Fertility in Adolescence: Teenage Pregnancy Trends of Three Birth Cohorts in Finland’.

PhD Students

  • Eunice Williams (2018-2022): “Women economic empowerment and the household economy in sub-Saharan Africa”. University of Southampton [primary supervisor].
  • Maria Herica La Valle (2017-2020): “Life events and changes in health-related behaviours: An investigation using the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing”. University of Southampton [secondary supervisor].

Find me in Google Scholar, Research Gate, LinkedIn, and ORCID ID.