Pekka Puska was born in Vaasa, northern Finland, in 1945. He was director of the North Karelia Project in eastern Finland from 1972 to 1997. Between 2001 and 2003 he was director of the department of non-communicable disease prevention at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. He has a PhD in epidemiology and has published more than 400 scientific papers. He has also served as a member of the Finnish parliament. He is married with two young children
Why North Karelia?
In the 1970s North Karelia had the highest mortality rate from heart disease in the world. The local…
