Kjell Arne Johansson is a professor of medical ethics and the philosophy of science at Bergen Centre for Ethics and Priority Setting (BCEPS) at the Department of Global Public Health and Primary Care. He also has a clinical background as a physician in the field of drug addiction and obstetrics and gynaecology at Haukeland University Hospital.

Kjell Arne is principal investigator for two BCEPS work packages ("Fair Choices: Disease Control Priorities Analytic Tool" and "Universal Health Care Zanzibar") and is project leader for a 5-year project on "Equity and financial household impact in randomised controlled trials, implementation research and cohort studies in India" (EQUIFINANCE) starting in 2021. He is also the co-leader of the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Zanzibar project.

Johansson has extensive experience in population ethics research, where he has been engaged in developing innovative methods for fair priority setting in global health and applying them to low and high-income country settings. His key areas of expertise include population ethics and distributive implications of health care, including economic evaluations, equality of health outcomes and financial risk protection. Much of his research focuses on applied equity impact modelling, seeking to understand the broader implications of improved health care coverage by using mathematical population models. In particular, he has contributed to three equity impact methods: Extended Cost Effectiveness Analysis (ECEA), severity of disease analysis and Distributional Cost Effectiveness Analysis (DCEA). He is currently president of the International Society for Priority Setting in Health (ISPH).

Teaching activities

2005-current   Responsible, together with Ingrid Miljeteig, for teaching at courses in medical ethics for medical students at University of Bergen.

2007-current   The ethics of global health and priority setting (part of general course in Global Health, 30 ECTS). Responsibility in establishment of this course, and now teaching.

2007-current   Responsible for teaching in ethics of priority setting in global health in various courses for graduate students at Master level, Centre for International Health, University of Bergen

2005-current   Several 1-2 hour lectures on medical ethics and priority setting at different courses arranged at the Faculty of Medicine and elsewhere (e.g. Human Rights, International Health, Refugees, Autonomy, Priority Setting, Reproductive Health, Social Determinant of Health, Specialist courses for Medical Doctors)

 

Supervision of graduate students:

Completed supervision: 3 PhDs (main supervisor), 3 Master's (main and co-supervisor), 2 PhD tracks (main supervisor), 9 research theses for medical students

Supervision in progress: 1 PhD (main supervisor), 7 PhDs (co-supervisor), 4 Master’s (co-supervisor

2025

• Clara Lucas Guerra; Jørn Henrik Vold; Christer Frode Aas et al. (2025). Associations between happiness with social factors and opioid agonist therapy among people who inject drugs. (external link)
• Sanaa Suleiman Said; Melf-Jakob Kühl; Bjørg Tilde Svanes Fevang et al. (2025). Treating rheumatoid arthritis in Zanzibar: a cost effectiveness study comparing conventional, biologic, and targeted-synthetic disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs. (external link)
• Omar Mwalim Omar; Sanaa Suleiman Said; Subira Suleiman et al. (2025). A 10-Step Method for Fair Priority-Setting Processes: A Qualitative Case Study from Zanzibar. (external link)
• Jørn Henrik Vold; Elinor Margrethe Chelsom Vogt; Anne Taraldsen Heldal et al. (2025). Low Testosterone Among Males in Opioid Agonist Therapy and Its Association With Fatigue and Psychological Distress. (external link)
• Fatemeh Chalabianloo; Lars T. Fadnes; Jon Mordal et al. (2025). Impact of dextroamphetamine substitution on the use of illicit amphetamines in adults with amphetamine dependence: a study protocol for the multicentre double blind randomised controlled trial ATLAS4Dependence. (external link)
• Sanaa Suleiman Said; Kjell Arne Johansson; Tone Wikene Nystad et al. (2025). Establishing Rheumatoid Arthritis care in Zanzibar: a year of clinical outcomes and challenges. (external link)
• Pratik Khanal; Kjell Arne Johansson; Achyut Raj Pandey et al. (2025). Financial burden of cancer in Nepal: Factors associated with annual cost and catastrophic health expenditure. (external link)

2017

• Frode Lindemark; Øystein Ariansen Haaland; Reidar Kvåle et al. (2017). Costs and expected gain in lifetime health from intensive care versus general ward care of 30,712 individual patients: A distribution-weighted cost-effectiveness analysis. (external link)
• Evelinn Mikkelsen; Jan A.C. Hontelez; Maarten P.M. Jansen et al. (2017). Evidence for scaling up HIV treatment in sub-Saharan Africa: A call for incorporating health system constraints. (external link)

2020

• Christer Frode Aas; Jørn Henrik Vold; Svetlana Skurtveit et al. (2020). Uptake and predictors of direct-acting antiviral treatment for hepatitis C among people receiving opioid agonist therapy in Sweden and Norway: a drug utilization study from 2014 to 2017. (external link)
• Kjell Arne Johansson; Jan-Magnus Økland; Eirin Krüger Skaftun et al. (2020). Estimating health adjusted age at death (HAAD). (external link)
• Solomon Hailemariam Tesfaye; Yabibal Gebeyehu; Eskindir Loha et al. (2020). Pulse oximeter with integrated management of childhood illness for diagnosis of severe childhood pneumonia at rural health institutions in Southern Ethiopia: Results from a cluster-randomised controlled trial. (external link)

2019

• Ole Jørgen Scheie Lygren; Ronny Bjørnestad; Else-Marie Løberg et al. (2019). Peer involvement and cross-sector efforts in establishing integrated treatment of hepatitis C virus infection for people with substance use disorders: experiences from Norway. (external link)

2023

• Sarah Ann Bolongaita; Yeeun Lee; Kjell Arne Johansson et al. (2023). Financial hardship associated with catastrophic out-of-pocket spending tied to primary care services in low- and lower-middle-income countries: findings from a modeling study. (external link)

2022

• Anne-Kristine N Åstrøm; Jørn Henrik Vold; Christer Frode Aas et al. (2022). Association between oral and general health related quality of life among Norwegian patients with substance use disorders in opioid agonist therapy. (external link)

2021

• Fatemeh Chalabianloo; Christian Ohldieck; Øystein Ariansen Haaland et al. (2021). Effectiveness and safety of low-threshold opioid-agonist treatment in hard-to-reach populations with opioid dependence. (external link)
• Jørn Henrik Vold; Rolf Gjestad; Christer F. Aas et al. (2021). Validation of a three-item Fatigue Severity Scale for patients with substance use disorder: a cohort study from Norway for the period 2016–2020. (external link)
• Christer Frode Aas; Jørn Henrik Vold; Rolf Gjestad et al. (2021). Substance use and symptoms of mental health disorders: a prospective cohort of patients with severe substance use disorders in Norway. (external link)

2018

• Bryony R. Dawkins; Andrew J. Mirelman; Miqdad Asaria et al. (2018). Distributional cost-effectiveness analysis in low- and middle-income countries: Illustrative example of rotavirus vaccination in Ethiopia. (external link)

2015

• Clinton J. Pecenka; Kjell Arne Johansson; Solomon Tessema Memirie et al. (2015). Health gains and financial risk protection: an extended cost-effectiveness analysis of treatment and prevention of diarrhoea in Ethiopia. (external link)

See a complete overview of publications in NVA.

20 latest peer-reviewed publications

BCEPS

At Bergen Center for Ethics and Priority Setting (BCEPS), Kjell Arne Johansson is leading two of the five work packages the center is organized around the next five years; a) priority decision support tools; and b) essential health care package for NCDI in Zanzibar.

DCP-Ethiopia

- Providing efficient, effective and equitable health care in Ethiopis

This Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) funded project will involve capacity-building at Ethiopia’s Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH). Entitled Disease Control Priorities-Ethiopia (DCP-E), the project will train Ethiopian researchers and policymakers in health economics, decision sciences and priority setting. The training will enable them to generate an evidence base for designing, developing and implementing essential health services for FMOH, and may be used, in particular, to help revise Ethiopia’s current essential health services package.

 

Poverty and Equity cKMC

- Community initiated Kangaroo Mother Care for low birth weight infants: a poverty and equity impact evaluation

Embedded in the ongoing main CISMAC trial, which estimates the survival benefits of promoting Kangaroo Mother Care at home (cKMC) to low birth weight (LBW) babies, this study will use the concentration index to estimate whether socioeconomic inequality in neonatal and early infant survival is more pronounced in the intervention or in the control groups. Further, this extension of the trial will estimate the household out-of-pocket expenses for illnesses that may be prevented by cKMC. It will also assess the extent to which out-of-pocket expenses for health care contribute to household impoverishment. Should cKMC prove effective in enhancing equity in child survival and in substantially reducing family expenditures, possibly even preventing catastrophic health expenditures, the findings of this added study could be of critical importance for scaling up Kangaroo Mother Care in India, as well as in other countries where many babies are born with LBW. Together with Sarmila Mazumder, Society for Applied Studies, India, Kjell Arne Johansson is the principal investigator.

 

INTRO HCV

- Integrated treatment of hepatitis C virus infection: a randomised controlled trial

This is a randomised controlled trial that estimates the effect of providing integrated hepatitis C treatment to patients with injecting opioid addiction. Those receiving medically assisted rehabilitation (MAR) often have poorer access to health care than the general population, and between 50-70% of all injectiong drug users in Bergen are estimated to be infected with hepatitis C virus. To end the hepatitis C epidemic, finding the best delivery platforms to provide the new and expensive antiviral heaptitis C drugs is crucial. Therefore, this study will provide new knowledge about how to improve patient care, MAR healthcare and to help access more of those in need of hepatitis C treatment. We want to test if integrated treatment is more effective than today's model.