In 1997, Södertörn University initiated the formation of a research group to study issues of health and social change in Eastern Europe. Major societal change and a dramatic decrease in life expectancy in the early 1990s in many countries in the region constituted a unique backdrop against which to examine different aspects of health in relation to social, political and economic change.

Up to now, researchers from SCOHOST, the Stockholm Centre for Health and Social Change (known
as the Stockholm Centre on Health of Societies in Transition until the end of 2014) have published more than 250 research articles on different topics to facilitate a better understanding of the complex associations between social factors, health and population well-being.

Research at SCOHOST can be divided into the following broad themes:

• Inequalities in health
• Social relations and health
• Psychological aspects of health
• Health behaviours
• Adolescent health
• Public health in a historical perspective
• Violence and victimization
• Urban environment and health

Since its formation, SCOHOST research has been funded through grants for different research projects. The Swedish Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies has had a major role in SCOHOST financing but research grants have also been received from the Swedish Research Council and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. SCOHOST has been a partner in several EU financed research projects.

SCOHOST cooperates with a number of European and Swedish research institutions, including ECOHOST at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, the Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, the Institute of Social and Economic Studies of Population at the Russian Academy of Sciences (ISESP RAS), CHESS, the Centre for Health Equity Studies at Stockholm University/Karolinska Institutet and many others.