Mikaela Bonsdorff von

Mikaela Bonsdorff von is a Professor at the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, and leads the Social Gerontology Programme at Folkhälsan Research Center in Helsinki. Her research group investigates healthy and active aging from a life course perspective, integrating doctoral students, postdocs, and project researchers across multiple institutions including University of Helsinki, Tampere University, Karolinska Institutet, VU Amsterdam, and Lund University.

• Current affiliations: University of Jyväskylä, Folkhälsan Research Center
• Collaboration networks: Nordic and European aging research institutions
• Research focus: Multidisciplinary gerontology and public health

Research interests center on healthy and active aging from a life course perspective, examining physical, psychological, and social functioning. Key areas include work ability, health trajectories, frailty development, adaptation to adversity, and lifestyle determinants of aging. The group employs diverse methodologies including longitudinal cohort studies and environmental gerontology approaches.

Recent publications focus on social vulnerability in aging, early-life determinants of resilience, multimorbidity patterns, and digital health tools for frailty prediction. These studies demonstrate interdisciplinary integration of epidemiology, genomics, and social sciences to understand aging processes.

The Paving the Way for Healthy Aging (FINeFI) project develops electronic frailty indices for early risk identification, while the Active University project explores community-building interventions for health promotion. Research outputs emphasize translational applications for preventive geriatrics and public health policy.