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Article History

Received: 7 June 2019

Accepted: 23 October 2019

First Online: 13 November 2019

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: Data consist of ten interviews collected from the health survey experts. Interviews relate to utilising health survey data (produced by THL) in national policy development and implementation in Finland. The study team decided that there was no need to submit the study to the Institutional Ethics Committee of THL, because the interviews were considered as part of the regular core tasks of THL to evaluate the data produced by THL. The THL Ethics Committee has decided that such interviews conducted as part of regular daily work and where there is no potential harm to the voluntary participants, do not need a formal ethics approval. This is in line with the national guidelines (). Verbal informed consent was obtained from all participants instead of written, as all interviewed experts were considered as collaborators in this regular evaluation, not primarily as research subjects, and they all checked the final manuscript. They were asked to check whether there were any incorrect interpretations or if any important examples had been missed, and their comments have been taken into account when finalizing the manuscript. Thus, they all agreed that the results can be published.

: Not applicable.

: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.