Sergio Flores

Short presentation

PhD candidate in health economics at the Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Uppsala University. My research evaluates Sweden's early childhood health policies using quasi-experimental methods and linked national registry data covering over 1.2 million children. I hold an MD and an MSc in Health Economics from Umeå University, and I lead the AI working group at Uppsala Health Economics (UHE) as well as a work package in the ECHOES project. My work sits at the intersection of causal

Keywords

• Health economics · Child health policy · Quasi-experimental methods · Difference-in-differences · Causal inference · Health equity · Early childhood · National registries · Sweden · Extended home visiting · Cost-effectiveness analysis · AI in health research

Biography

Sergio Flores is a PhD candidate in health economics at the Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences (IFV), Uppsala University, where he is affiliated with CHAP (Child Health and Parenting) and Uppsala Health Economics (UHE). He defends his dissertation in May 2026.

His research evaluates Sweden's Extended Home Visiting Program (the Rinkeby model) using linked national registry data covering over 1.2 million children. The four-paper dissertation examines targeting effectiveness, implementation fidelity, causal health effects, and cost-effectiveness — with a central argument about how projectification dynamics can undermine trust-based public health interventions.

Sergio holds an MD and an MSc in Health Economics from Umeå University. Before entering academia he founded a health cooperative and a private HMO, and has worked across five countries in clinical, entrepreneurial, and policy roles. He teaches epidemiology and public health policy, hosts the Fikademia podcast on academic life in Sweden, and is a recipient of the Global Swede Award from the Swedish Institute and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Research

My research sits at the intersection of health economics, causal inference, and child health policy. I use quasi-experimental designs — primarily difference-in-differences with staggered adoption estimators (Sun & Abraham; Callaway & Sant'Anna) — applied to linked Swedish national registries spanning SCB, Socialstyrelsen, Försäkringskassan, BHV quality registers, and SkaPa, covering the full Swedish child population from 2012 onward.

My dissertation evaluates the Extended Home Visiting Program (EHVP), a targeted augmentation of Sweden's universal BVC system, asking whether it reaches the families it intends to reach, whether it produces measurable health effects, and whether it represents value for money. A cross-cutting theme concerns how short-term project funding structures interact with the trust-based logic of preventive public health programs.

As work package leader in the ECHOES project and lead of the UHE AI working group, I also develop methods for integrating machine learning and nowcasting approaches into health system planning and equity monitoring at the municipal level.

Media

Podcast: Fikademia — a podcast on research, academic life, and career paths in Sweden. Listen on Spotify

Opinion piece: Felth A, Flores S, Dyar O. "Future physicians are willing to sacrifice salary for better working conditions." Läkartidningen, 17 September 2025. lakartidningen.se