Soile Puhakka

Oulu Deaconess Institute Foundation ry · 1Department of Sports and Exercise Medicine

Our existence on Earth is founded on a vital nature, which supports human physical and mental health. However, nature is often depicted only through biodiversity, whereas geodiversity-the diversity of non-living nature-has so far been neglected. Geodiversity consists of assemblages, structures, and systems of geological, geomorphological, soil, and...

Neighbourhood socioeconomic status and physical access to amenities and greenness are factors that have been associated with mental, physical and perceived health. However, associations between long-time exposure to these circumstances and changes in perceived health in the middle-age population have remained a relatively underexamined area. This s...

Background Hypertension can be detected at the primary health-care level and low-cost treatments can effectively control hypertension. We aimed to measure the prevalence of hypertension and progress in its detection, treatment, and control from 1990 to 2019 for 200 countries and territories. Methods We used data from 1990 to 2019 on people aged 30...

Introduction: Physical inactivity is a global concern, especially among adolescent men. Little research has been done on the association between parental factors and young adults' physical activity in the context of residential environment. We aimed to reveal what parental factors are associated with physical activity among adolescent men living i...

From 1985 to 2016, the prevalence of underweight decreased, and that of obesity and severe obesity increased, in most regions, with significant variation in the magnitude of these changes across regions. We investigated how much change in mean body mass index (BMI) explains changes in the prevalence of underweight, obesity, and severe obesity in di...

From 1985 to 2016, the prevalence of underweight decreased, and that of obesity and severe obesity increased, in most regions, with significant variation in the magnitude of these changes across regions. We investigated how much change in mean body mass index (BMI) explains changes in the prevalence of underweight, obesity, and severe obesity in di...

Background: Recently, the importance of light physical activity (LPA) for health has been emphasized, and residential greenness has been positively linked to the level of LPA and a variety of positive health outcomes. However, people spend less time in green environments because of urbanization and modern sedentary leisure activities. Aims: In t...

Background Comparable global data on health and nutrition of school-aged children and adolescents are scarce. We aimed to estimate age trajectories and time trends in mean height and mean body-mass index (BMI), which measures weight gain beyond what is expected from height gain, for school-aged children and adolescents. Methods For this pooled ana...

Purpose: A data mining approach was applied to establish a multilevel hierarchy predicting physical activity (PA) behavior, and to methodologically identify the correlates of PA behavior. Methods: Cross-sectional data from the population-based Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 study, collected in the most recent follow-up at age 46, were used t...

High blood cholesterol is typically considered a feature of wealthy western countries1,2. However, dietary and behavioural determinants of blood cholesterol are changing rapidly throughout the world³ and countries are using lipid-lowering medications at varying rates. These changes can have distinct effects on the levels of high-density lipoprotein...

Purpose A data mining approach was applied to establish a multilevel hierarchy explaining physical activity (PA) behavior, and to methodologically identify the correlates of PA behavior. Methods The 46-year follow-up data from the population-based Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 were used to create a hierarchy using Chi-square Automatic Interact...

Purpose: A data mining approach was applied to establish a multilevel hierarchy predicting physical activity (PA) behavior, and to methodologically identify the correlates of PA behavior. Methods: Cross-sectional data from the population-based Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 study, collected in the most recent follow-up at age 46, were used to c...

Purpose: A data mining approach was applied to establish a multilevel hierarchy predicting physical activity (PA) behavior, and to methodologically identify the correlates of PA behavior. Methods: Cross-sectional data from the population-based Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 study, collected in the most recent follow-up at age 46, were used to c...

Background: Given the high global prevalence of physical inactivity, there is a need to design cities that support active modes of transportation. High density diverse neighborhoods with good access networks have been associated with enhanced walking and cycling, but there is a lack of large-scale longitudinal studies utilizing a life course persp...

Body-mass index (BMI) has increased steadily in most countries in parallel with a rise in the proportion of the population who live in cities1,2. This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most important drivers of the global rise in obesity3–6. Here we use 2,009 population-based studies, with measurements of height and...

Background: In general, nature relatedness is positively associated with physical activity, health, and subjective well-being. However, increased residence in urban areas, and the decrease in natural spaces, may affect the younger generation most adversely. The associated environmental changes can increase youths’ risk of spending most of their tim...