Mette Bender

Mette Bender serves as an Assistant Professor and Guest Researcher in the Department of Public Health, Section of Social Medicine at the University of Copenhagen's Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences. Her work focuses on social inequality in healthcare access and outcomes, particularly within Denmark's universal welfare system, using quantitative and epidemiological methodologies.

Her research interests span social inequality in healthcare access, treatment outcomes, cohesive healthcare systems, and health services research. Using primarily register-based epidemiological methods, she investigates how socioeconomic factors influence disease management, mortality patterns, and rehabilitation access, with type 2 diabetes serving as a key model condition for examining health disparities. Her work consistently addresses questions of equity in universal healthcare systems.

Analysis of her publication record reveals a sustained focus on socioeconomic disparities in diabetes care across multiple dimensions - from area-level prevalence patterns to rehabilitation referrals and disease management programs. Her work increasingly examines how multimorbidity mediates health inequality and investigates the joint effects of education, chronic conditions, and comorbidity on labor market outcomes like disability pension.

Dr. Bender's research has received attention across academic and policy spheres, with citations in Scopus-indexed journals, mentions on social media platforms including X (formerly Twitter) and Bluesky, references in policy documents, and significant readership through academic platforms like Mendeley.

Her collaborative network includes prominent Danish public health researchers such as Charlotte Glümer, Henrik Brønnum-Hansen, Inge Andersen, Karsten Vrangbæk, and Finn Diderichsen, reflecting strong integration within Denmark's population health research community.