Lars-Olov Lundqvist - new professor 2019
Lars-Olov Lundqvist is adjunct professor of disability science. His research on disabilities emphasises health for persons with mental and physical disabilities in a life perspective.
1958 Born in Härnösand, Sweden
1994 Obtained his PhD in psychology at Uppsala University with his thesis Emotional contagion to facial expressions: A social psychophysiological examination.
2008 Docent in psychology at Örebro University
2018 Adjunct professor of disability science at Örebro University
“In addition to my psychological perspective, I have an interdisciplinary interest, so I also make an effort to include the biological and social perspectives in my research,” says Lars-Olov Lundqvist.
He has a background as senior lecturer in psychology at Örebro University. In 2001, he went on to a position as research manager and later as research director, both at the Centre for Habilitation Research at Region Örebro County.
Since 2015, Lars-Olov Lundqvist is research leader at the University Health Care Research Center at Region Örebro County. Currently, he conducts research in three overlapping research areas: disability and health, quality in psychiatric care, and emotional communication and emotional regulation.
His research on disability and health concerns, among other things, people with cerebral palsy, autism spectrum conditions, intellectual disabilities, acquired brain damage, visual and hearing impairments, and diabetes.
Research is conducted together with doctoral students and researchers linked to Habilitation and Assistive Devices at Region Örebro County and the Institute for Disability Research, linked to the universities in Örebro, Linköping and Jönköping.
“Our research has the overall purpose of giving better living conditions to people with disabilities, and includes children, adults and older people with various disabilities,” says Lars-Olov Lundqvist.
His research on quality in psychiatric care is conducted in cooperation with Professor Agneta Schröder at the University Health Care Research Center in Örebro and aims at developing and evaluating instruments for measuring quality in psychiatric care. These instruments are adapted for different psychiatric activities and can be used for national and international comparisons.
“We want to identify areas for improvement and measure the effects of actions taken to improve quality. We collaborate with patient organisations and with international researchers from the Nordic countries, Spain, France, Great Britain, Brazil, Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand and Australia, among others,” explains Lars-Olov Lundqvist.
The purpose of research on emotional communication and emotional regulation is to identify individual differences in sensitivity to others’ expressions of emotions, and how these are linked to other psychological factors such as quality of life and health. This may concern, for example, persons with autism spectrum disorders.
Other questions concern how emotions are conveyed through body language and vocal pitch, and how music may be used to regulate emotions, including among young people with intellectual disabilities. This research is conducted mainly in collaboration with other researchers in Europe and the USA.
“Disability research is a small field. As an adjunct professor of disability science, I now have the opportunity to link research conducted within Region Örebro County closer to the research that is being done within the Institute for Disability Research at Örebro University. This is encouraging and allows us to further expand and specialise this research within the region,” says Lars-Olov Lundqvist.