Professor Jaakko Tuomilehto
Professor Jaakko Tuomilehto, MD, MPolSc, PhD is Professor of Public Health at the University of Helsinki, Finland. In addition, he is affiliated with the Diabetes Unit of the National Public Health Institute, Helsinki, Finland and holds positions as a Visiting Professor of Clinical Epidemiology at the Danube-University Krems, Austria.
He has been involved in a number of key cardiovascular prevention studies including the North Karelia Project, the FINMONICA Study (the Finnish part of the WHO MONICA project). He initiated the Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study, the landmark study for the primary prevention of type 2 diabetes, and also the large collaborative DECODE and DECODA.studies on the prevalence and outcomes of hyperglycaemia. He has served in various committees in many controlled clinical trials. He is a member of several national and international committees and the chair of the Finnish Epidemiological Society and of the Neuroepidemiology Science Panel of the European Federation of Neurological Societies. He is also a member of numerous scientific societies including the Finnish Society of Hypertension (past President), International Diabetes Epidemiology Group (past President), Finnish Hypertension Society (pat president) and the European Society of Cardiology (past President of the Working Group on Epidemiology and Prevention). He has been involved in many diabetes epidemiology training courses in the past.
He has published about 1000 peer-reviewed original articles and about 250 Editorials, Reviews and Book chapters and has served on the advisory boards of many scientific journals. He ranks among the 15 most cited researchers (during the last 10 years) in clinical medicine worldwide.
He has been presented with a number of prestigious awards including: UNESCO – Hellmut Mehnert Award on aetiology and prevention of diabetes, Castelli Pedroli Prize from the EASD, the Kelly West Award for Outstanding Achievement in Epidemiology from the American Diabetes Association and the Peter Bennett Diabetes Epidemiology Award from the International Epidemiology Group.