Structural conditions of healthcare provision and public health at the local level. A comparison of Germany, Great Britain, and Sweden

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Claus Wendt
• Subject Area: Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 499134918

The project analyses structures of healthcare provision and health protection. It focuses on organizational units aiming at ensuring, improving, and restoring health of individuals and the overall population. It also asks how actors and organizations communicateand collaborate for achieving these goals. The focus is on, first, primary healthcare, second, hospital care, third, long-term care, and fourth, public health. With respect to public health, we concentrate on local public health centres with responsibilities in prevention, health promosion, and protection against communicable diseases.Therefore, these centres have responsibilities to protect the respective population in case of epidemics. Tasks and functions of these public health centres (Gesundheitsämter in Germany) and how these organizations and the involved actors collaborated with actorsand organizations of the healthcare system during the Covid 19 pandemic will also be analyzed. However, this is not the main focus of the project. The project focuses primarily on local healthcare and public health units, the respective organizational structurs andinvolved actors, on the goals and structure of collaboration, and how this process is supported through digitalization such as eHealth. It asks how these structures and processes influences healthcare for patients as well as health protection of the population. In summary, the project has the following goals: 1) Development of an analytic framework for the assessment of the structurs of the healthcare system and public health centres at the local level. 2) Assessment of the local structures of the healthcare system and public health units in Germany, Great Britain, and Sweden. 3)Comparative analysis of communication and collaboration of the involved actors and organizations. 4) Comparative analysis how communication and collaboration is supported through digitalization processes. 5) Comparative analysis how healthcare and public health units collaborate / have collaborated to respond to the Covid 19 crisis.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants