Liina Mansukoski
Lecturer in Public Health Nutrition
Profile
Biography
Liina is a Lecturer in Public Health Nutrition at Hull York Medical School, University of York. She is a member of the Public Health Nutrition and Public Health and Society research groups at the Department of Health Sciences.
Liina is currently supporting the NIHR Specialist Centre for Public Health (Newcastle) evaluation. She further contributes to Teaching and Learning on the MBBS Programme, the Master of Public Health Programme (Epidemiology module co- lead) and supervises students.
Before starting at the Hull York Medical School, Liina worked as a Research Fellow in the Department of Health Sciences at University of York. Previously, she has worked as a Child Growth and Development Research Fellow at the Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto, Canada), and as a doctoral researcher and University Teacher at Loughborough University.
She obtained her PhD in Public Health Nutrition from Loughborough University in 2019, and her BSc and MSc(Res) in Anthropology from Durham University. Liina's background is in the anthropology and human biology of growth, and her expertise are in:
- Child growth and development (e.g., inequalities, secular trends, nutritional status)
- Evaluation of early years public health interventions from a systems perspective (e.g., development of core outcome sets, consensus methods, ripple effects mapping)
- Harnessing large longitudinal and routine datasets to address research questions related to growth and growth metrics (e.g., growth modelling using specialist software).
Qualifications
- BSc Anthropology, 1st Class Honours, Department of Anthropology, Durham University
- MSc (by Research) Biological Anthropology, Department of Anthropology, Durham University
- PhD Human Biology, Department of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences, Loughborough University
Departmental roles
- Centre for Health and Population Sciences
- HYMS IKE Deputy Lead
Research
Overview
Liina's wider research interests include investigating socioeconomic inequalities in child and adolescent health and growth globally using longitudinal cohort studies. The geographical focus of her work includes UK, the US and Guatemala. More recently, she has become interested in
applying systems approaches to public health intervention evaluation, including method development work.
Liina is an associate editor for the Journal of Biosocial Science, a Trustee of the Society for the Study of Human Biology, and a peer-reviewer for several human biology, anthropology and nutrition journals.
Research group(s)
Teaching
Undergraduate
Liina teaches public health and critical appraisal topics on the undergraduate MBBS Programme (HYMS).
Postgraduate
Liina co-leads the Epidemiology module on the MPH Programme (DOHS).
External activities
Memberships
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
- Society for the Study of Human Biology (trustee 2025-)
Editorial duties
- Associate Editor of Journal of Biosocial Science (2023-)
