The External Reference Group

Emma Jangö serves as Head of Operations at Hej främling, a national non-profit organization dedicated to fostering meaningful connections between people through open and free health‑promoting activities. With a focus on culture, sports, and outdoor recreation, the organization operates in 60 locations across Sweden and welcomes close to 50,000 participant visits each year.

Driven by the belief that well‑being and belonging should be accessible to all, Hej främling works toward the vision of a society where everyone feels good and everyone has a place.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmajango/

Website: https://www.hejframling.se/

Anna Tuomas is the Founder and Secretary‑General of Fenomenala, an organization committed to ensuring that no child, young person, or adult falls through the gaps of today’s societal systems. Motivated by the growing number of individuals who experience marginalization and exclusion, she serves on the reference group to help shape meaningful solutions.

Her work is driven by the conviction that public health initiatives must be designed and implemented in ways that lead to real, measurable impact. By contributing her perspective and expertise, she aims to advance efforts that promote greater health equity and ensure that more people receive the support they need to thrive.

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/anna-tuomas-326034107

Website: https://fenomenala.nu/

I have experience in building and developing our organization, which demonstrates how important and rewarding it is when civil society, the public sector, and academia collaborate. We can offer each other knowledge and feedback—an exchange that can be crucial for the quality of all parties involved.

I am a researcher and work as an investigator at the Public Health Agency of Sweden, in the unit for mental health and suicide prevention. My work covers a broad range of public health issues, and I focus on bridging research and practice to make scientific knowledge as useful and applicable as possible.

When it comes to health equity, I work with it at every stage—from how it can be measured at the national level, to how we can make the results accessible, and what can be done to reduce health inequalities at different levels of society. This makes this work highly meaningful to me, and I hope to contribute with my experience.

I work at the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SKR), a membership organization representing all municipalities and regions in Sweden. My role involves supporting municipalities and regions in their efforts to promote health and prevent ill‑health among children and young people, with health equity as the central guiding principle.

A key focus of my work is strengthening the conditions for collaboration—between municipalities and regions, between different services, across professions, and importantly, between services and the target groups themselves. No single part of the system can accomplish everything on its own, and the collective capacity of various welfare actors is immense. However, in a complex system with many different needs, conditions, governance signals, priorities, laws, organizational structures, and cultures, it is not always easy to move from words to action.

At SKR, together with our members, national agencies, and other partners, I work daily with issues related to the implementation of public health initiatives in one form or another. I look forward to deepening my understanding of these questions through the research program and the reference group, and I hope to contribute with knowledge and experience from local, regional, and national levels.