معرفی
Erik Pettersson is an Associate Professor and Principal Researcher at Karolinska Institutet's Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics in Stockholm, Sweden. Holding the title of Docent since 2021, he leads significant research initiatives exploring the fundamental structure of mental disorders and their intergenerational transmission patterns.
His primary research interests focus on psychiatric comorbidity and the general factor of psychopathology (p-factor), investigating why individuals with one psychiatric diagnosis often develop multiple mental health conditions. Using sophisticated multivariate behavior genetic and quasi-causal methods, Pettersson analyzes data from Swedish population-based health registers and the Swedish Twin Register to understand the underlying mechanisms of mental health disorders across generations.
His publication record demonstrates consistent high-impact research in psychiatry and epidemiology, with recent work examining the connections between general psychopathology and clinical outcomes, intergenerational transmission of mental health conditions, and the relationship between mental health problems and physical health outcomes like cardiometabolic complications. His methodological approach frequently employs twin and sibling designs to control for familial confounding factors.
- Swedish Research Council grant for 'Treatment of general psychopathology' (2024-2026)
- Swedish Research Council for Health Working Life and Welfare grant for 'Life trajectories in offspring of parents with psychiatric diagnoses' (2024-2026)
- Swedish Research Council grant for 'Compulsory psychiatric care of children and youth' (2021-2024)
- Swedish Research Council grant for 'The general factor of psychopathology: Reliability, etiology, and development' (2018-2021)
Pettersson actively mentors doctoral students including Mengping Zhou and Zhenxin Liao as primary supervisor and Astrid Moell as co-supervisor. His teaching experience includes directing courses in behavior genetics at Karolinska Institutet and previously at the University of Virginia, demonstrating his commitment to academic training in psychiatric epidemiology and research methodology.
