For me as a sociologist, substance use habits, practices and policies have provided a platform to study broader social processes such as continuities and changes in governmental programs, sociocultural norms and gender issues.

The purpose of my research has been to produce knowledge of how substance use is related to everyday life situations and intoxication, healthy or unhealthy subjectivities and safe or harmful practices, as well as how policies of substance use embody legitimate, problematic or unequal actions. As empirical data, I have used public health documents, parliament sessions, media texts, scientific writings, individual interviews, focus group discussions, survey data, advertisements, online forums, diaries and autobiographies.

2000 - Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Helsinki. Focus of my dissertation was on the changing relationships between the citizen and the state by analysing politicians’, journalists’, trade union activists’ and business people’s  views on alcohol problems and alcohol policy from Finland and Estonia.

2000-2006 - Researcher at the Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies, where I continued substance use research by heading research projects that dealt with disorderly public drinking and control policies, young adults' drinking cultures in night-time economy, changes in the cultural position of drinking in Finland and Sweden among four generations, the gendered dynamics of drinking situations in the last 40 years and women’s substance use and health.

2006 - Professor at Stockholm University, SoRAD and the Department of Public Health Sciences.