Welcome to the website of the Division Prevention and Rehabilitation Research!

We are a new division at the Department of Health Services Research, established in January 2024.

Our group, led by Prof. Dr. Kathrin Boerner, includes several postdoctoral research associates and doctoral students: Dr. Milena von Kutzleben, Dr. Sabine Nover, Dr. Sarah Uthoff, Dr. Anna Zinkevich, Helge Schnack (formerly Department of Organizational Health Services Research) and Adele Grenz. We also provide a new home to the Mixed Methods Laboratory.

Given the rapidly growing number of older adults and increasing longevity, preventive and rehabilitative approaches are becoming ever more important in health services research. The focus of research and teaching in our division is therefore the optimization of everyday life for older adults and their families, including the prevention of functional health decline and care dependency, with the aim of adding not only “years to life” but also “life to years.”

Tackling this is one of the major challenges of our future - also for health services research. It is a big task that requires interdisciplinary, multi-methodological, and cross-border approaches to research and healthcare. Our approach involves close collaborations within the interdisciplinary context of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences and other departments of the universities of Oldenburg and Groningen, as well as the expansion of community partnerships in the region. We also maintain a strong international network through active collaborations within and outside Europe (especially the USA, Switzerland, South Korea, and Israel).

We use a wide range of empirical social research methods, with flexible use of qualitative and quantitative methods, as well as mixed methods approaches.