Research
Contact
Head of Division
Postal Address
Visting Address
Research
DiVerso – Diversity-Sensitive Healthcare for Rural Areas (2025-2029)
PIs: Prof. Dr. Mark Schweda (Ethics in Medicine, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg), Prof. Dr. Kathrin Boerner (Prevention and Rehabilitation Research, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg), Prof. Dr. Martin Butler (American Studies: Literature and Culture, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg), Prof. Dr. Julia Wurr (Postcolonial Studies, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg)
Funding: Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture / Volkswagen Foundation
Duration: 2025–2029
In light of social change, shifting gender roles, and intensified migration, diversity is becoming increasingly important in medicine and healthcare. There are numerous approaches of diversity-sensitive healthcare tailored to the variety of needs, orientations, and life situations and especially addressing the specific problems and vulnerabilities of marginalized groups. However, the respective programs are usually associated with urban or metropolitan contexts. Comparable approaches for the specific conditions of rural areas are lacking. In public debates, rural contexts are often associated with a low awareness of diversity or even with its rejection. At the same time, one can find unexpected forms of lived diversity that resist dominant political-ideological divisions and common discursive tropes.
This project aims to advance approaches to diversity-sensitive healthcare in rural areas. To this end, it combines perspectives from health services research, medical ethics, and social sciences as well as cultural studies to investigate how diversity is experienced, evaluated, and practiced in specific rural healthcare contexts, and how the relationship between diversity and rurality is discursively constructed and negotiated in public, political, and academic debates. Our focus is on gender, class, and race/migration, but is also open to further aspects (e.g., age, sexuality, disability, etc.) and their intersections. Three exemplary fields of practice will be studied: (a) informal and semiformal practices like migrant live-in care for older people, (b) inpatient care in the field of mental health, (c) technology-assisted care employing nursing robotics and telemedicine.
To explore healthcare practices, we use methods of social research such as qualitative interviews to study the needs, perspectives, and experiences of both caregivers and care recipients regarding diversity in rural healthcare. In ethical analyses of group discussions, we also examine the underlying normative understandings and evaluations of diversity among stakeholders. Furthermore, from a discourse-analytical perspective, we address the assumptions, concepts, and theories constructed and negotiated in public, political, and academic discussions. Building on cultural studies and power-critical approaches, we also conduct international comparative analyses of relevant representations in various text types (research literature, policy papers, memoirs, cultural representations) within the tensions of regional and global health.
DFG-Research Group: Medicine, Time and the Good Life (2025-2029)
Medicine, Time, and the Good Life
Spokesperson of the Research Group: Prof. Dr. Mark Schweda
Project Managers in the Department: Prof. Dr. Mark Schweda und Dr. Sonja Deppe
Project Participants in the Department: Julia Demirdizen, M.A.
Funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
Funding Code: FOR 5022
Duration: 2025-2029
The DFG Research Group FOR 5022 is dedicated to the interrelationships between medicine and the temporal structure of the good life. Combining philosophical and applied ethical research perspectives as well as empirical social and cultural studies, we investigate the significance of medical options for the temporal aspects of a good life and, conversely, the role that temporal aspects of a good life play in the assessment of medical options. Our research focuses on three practical fields: first, the investigation of biographical phases and transitions in the treatment of patients with chronic heart disease in young and middle adulthood; second, temporal planning, control, and optimization efforts in middle age in the context of reproductive medicine; and third, the understanding (and renegotiation) of aging in the health care of older people.
In the first funding period (May 2021 – April 2025), the focus was initially on the individual's biographical temporality. However, the research increasingly revealed the relevance of supra-individual and, above all, intergenerational temporal dimensions. In the current funding period (May 2025 – April 2029), we therefore focus on generativity. This means that we address the question of how orienting oneself beyond one's own lifetime is relevant for a good life, for example, with regard to concern for the well-being of one's own offspring or forms of transmission to future generations in general. What relevance do such perspectives have for a good life in the context of medical possibilities, and conversely, what implications do medical possibilities have for generativity as an element of a good life? From a theoretical and methodological perspective, addressing this question requires, in particular, a more systematic consideration of the significance of narrative forms of shaping and communicating individual and supra-individual temporal structures. In the Oldenburg subproject F, we are exploring the significance of the generative embedding of finite individual life in overarching intergenerational contexts with a view to healthcare in older age. Our central and integrative project synthesizes the results of both funding periods and reflects on them with a focus on the relevance of biographical and generative (dis)continuity for a good life.
Research Cluster: Future of Care (2024-2029)
Principal Investigators: Prof. Dr. Mark Schweda (Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Division of Ethics in Medicine), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Andreas Hein (OFFIS), Prof. Dr. Karin Wolf-Ostermann (University of Bremen), Prof. Dr. Nils Lahmann (Charité University Medical Centre Berlin), Prof. Dr. Christiane Kugler (Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg), Prof. Dr. Christophe Kunze (Furtwangen University), Dr. Regina Schmeer (Hanover Medical School), Tobias Kley (Pflegewohnhaus am Waldkrankenhaus gGmbH), Sabine Röseler (Hanse Institut Oldenburg), Sven Ziegler (Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg Freiburg), Marlene Klemm (NürnbergStift), Dr. Jörg Traub (Bayern Innovativ GmbH), Prof. Dr. Vera Antonia Büchner (Nuremberg School of Health, Technical University of Ohm)
Project Members (Division of Ethics in Medicine): Lena Stange M.Sc.
Funding: Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR)
Funding Reference: 16SV9269
Duration: 2024-2029
The care sector in Germany is facing enormous challenges: A sharp rise in the number of people in need of care is coming up against a glaring shortage of skilled workers. At the same time, nursing interventions become more and more complex.
The “Future of Care” cluster brings together social and technological innovations in care: research, industry and care practice are working together with users to develop new products that will make everyday care in Germany easier and better. A core aspect of the new project is the so-called buddy concept, which provides for experienced facilities from the cluster to be brought together with new partners in order to support them in the introduction of innovative care technologies. In this way, a mentoring system is to be set up together with the nursing practice centres, in which the knowledge gained can be integrated directly into everyday care.
To facilitate this transfer, a multi-stage process will be set up: In a theoretical phase, experiences are first processed and potential partners are identified. This is followed by a practical phase with concrete implementation and support. Finally, the results are systematically evaluated. The task of the Division of Ethics in Medicine is to examine and evaluate the ethical and social aspects of this planning and implementation. The task of the Division of Ethics in Medicine is to examine and evaluate the ethical, social and legal aspects of this planning and implementation. The focus of the sub-project led by Prof. Mark Schweda is on the distribution of care responsibilities along complex care paths.
Contact: Lena Stange M.Sc. ([email protected])
Website: https://www.cluster-zukunft-der-pflege.de/index.php/en/startseite-english/
Hearaz - Hearable-centered assistance: From sensor to participation (2024-2028)
Hearaz (Research Training Group 2969)
Hearable-centered assistance: From sensor to participation
Principal Investigators: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Andreas Hein (Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Division Assistance Systems and Medical Device Technology), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Tanja Schultz (University Bremen, Cognitive Systems Lab), PD Dr. phil. Anna Levke Brütt (Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Junior Research Group for Rehabilitation Sciences), Prof. Dr. Dr. Birger Kollmeier (Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Division Medical Physics), Prof. Ph.D. Haizhou Li (University Bremen, Machine Listening), Prof. Dr. med. Andreas Radeloff (Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Ear, Nose and Throat Medicine), Prof. Dr. Mark Schweda (Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Division of Ethics in Medicine), Prof. Dr. med. Karsten Witt (Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Neurology), Prof. Dr. Karin Wolf-Ostermann (University Bremen, Health care research), Prof. Dr. med. Tania Zieschang (Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Division Geriatric Medicine)
Project Members (Division of Ethics in Medicine): Gesine Buurman, M.Sc.
Funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
Funding Reference: 512960146
Duration: 2024-2028
The vision of the HEARAZ Research Training Group is to develop a new generation of networked, ear-level technical assistance systems (“hearables”) and to integrate them into everyday life and care practice. By connecting hearing aids with sensors and external devices, hearables will become a mobile and personalized “health hub at the ear”. The aim is to go beyond mere hearing improvement to enhance perception, communication, and mobility, thereby strengthening social participation – even in the face of health limitations, vulnerability, and increasing diversity. HEARAZ brings together expertise in signal processing, machine learning, clinical research, ethics, law, and the social sciences. Its inter- and transdisciplinary approach ensures that technical and social innovations are considered jointly and from the outset. This enables an integrated view of basic research, development, and evaluation of technical systems as well as their ethical and societal implications.
The ethical subproject “Networked assistance and value pluralism: User perspectives of technical assistance systems in the context of cognitive impairments” explores moral expectations and value conflicts that may arise when hearables are used within care networks – particularly in the context of cognitive impairments and dementia. In increasingly diverse and pluralistic societies, differing interests of users, informal caregivers, professional nurses, and other stakeholders must be negotiated and balanced. The subproject aims to systematically integrate these diverse perspectives into technology development. Using qualitative research, ethical analysis, and participatory co-design, it seeks to create hearable solutions that are more responsive to the needs of users and better accepted in everyday life.
Contact: Gesine Buurman, M.Sc. ([email protected])
Website: https://www.hearaz.de/en/home/
The Future of Intergenerational Solidarity beyond the Pandemic: Empirically-Informed Ethical Analysis and Public Deliberation (FuturISE) (2024-2028)
Principal Investigators: Prof. Dr. Mark Schweda (Division of Ethics in Medicine, University of Oldenburg), Dr. Larissa Pfaller (Institute for Sociology, FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg), Prof. Dr. Andreas Motel-Klingebiel (Linköping University, Sweden), Prof. Paul Higgs (University College London, UK)
Project Members (Division of Ethics in Medicine): Eva Katharina Boser, M.A.; Lena Dörmann, M.Sc.; Niklas Ellerich-Groppe, M.A.
Funding: VolkswagenStiftung
Funding Reference: Az. 9D251
Duration: 2024-2028
The COVID-19 pandemic can be seen as a multidimensional "stress test" for intergenerational solidarity. It has sparked controversy in various countries about the moral relationships and responsibilities between generations. While some invoked the notion of solidarity to justify population-wide restrictive measures to protect older people, others expected the elderly to isolate themselves to enable them to return to normal social life as soon as possible. Elsewhere, political reactions varied from an initial strategy of herd immunity to a policy of isolation and social distancing to a far-reaching suspension of restrictive measures. The associated public debates touched on fundamental questions of social cohesion and the legitimacy of moral and legal claims. In view of further challenges that are changing the future horizon of European societies, such as the war in Ukraine, demographic change and the climate crisis, such questions are becoming increasingly important.
The project aims at a comparative socio-empirical exploration, moral-philosophical clarification and public deliberation of ideas and conceptions of intergenerational solidarity in Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Based on the experiences of the pandemic, the aim is the empirically informed participatory development of morally acceptable and socially sustainable visions for the future of intergenerational relations at both national and transnational level.
The results can thus not only contribute to a better understanding of fundamental moral relationships between generations from a social science and moral philosophy perspective, but also make these insights directly tangible for the future.
Contact: Eva Katharina Boser, M.A. ([email protected]);
Niklas Ellerich-Groppe, M.A. ([email protected])
Website: https://futurise-research.com/en/
Working Group Intergenerational Healthcare Ethics
Project Members (Divison of Ethics in Medicine): Prof. Dr. Mark Schweda, Niklas Ellerich-Groppe, M.A.
Members: Prof. Dr. Claudia Bozzaro, Prof. Dr. Christoph Rehmann-Sutter, Prof. Dr. Silke Schicktanz, Prof. Dr. Mark Schweda, Niklas Ellerich-Groppe, Dominik Koesling
Duration: since 2021
The working group intergenerational healthcare ethics (AiG) is a research network, that addresses medical ethical and bioethical questions, that touch upon the relation between generations and the future in medicine and healthcare in general. This comprises health-related questions on sustainability, climate justice, genetics and prevention. It understands medicine as a dynamic field of interprofessional social practice that develops and changes in societal and political contexts. In the working group. we apply ethical approaches that focus on relations, are sensitive for injustices and include also social and cultural science apporaches.
Contact: Niklas Ellerich-Groppe, M.A. ([email protected])
Project website: https://uole.de/medizinethik/forschung/aig
HWK study group: Rejecting Futures: Practices of Resistance or Failure
Principal Investigators: Prof. Dr. Mark Schweda (Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Abteilung Ethik in der Medizin), Dr. Annette Leibing (Hanse Wissenschaftskolleg/Universität Montreal)
Project Members (Division of Ethics in Medicine): Prof. Dr. Mark Schweda
Members: David Benatar (Cape Town), Claudia Bozzaro (Kiel), James Crossley (Bedford), Luiz Fernando Duarte (Rio de Janeiro), Lee Edelman (Tufts), Nolen Gertz (Twente), Line Grenier (Montreal), Ulla Kriebernegg (Graz), Annette Leibing (Montreal), Virginie Tournay (Paris), Matthew Wolf-Meyer (Troy), Matthew Worley (Reading), Isaac Yuen (Vancouver)
Funding: Hanse Wissenschaftskolleg (HWK)
Duration: 2023-2026
The all-encompassing paradigm of prevention – from actively preventing future disease to insuring ourselves against all sorts of possible catastrophies – prompts many of us to take our future lives, bodies, and health not as a given fact but as a project, i.e., something that can and should be responsibly devised and shaped by forecasting, planning, and intervention. The moral implications and sociocultural consequences of this trend towards projecting and planning individual as well as collective “bio-futures” have been at the centre of intensive debates in ethics, social research, and cultural studies. By comparison, the accompanying development of oppositional or subversive strategies to resist or circumvent the claims of (bio-)futurity have found little systematic attention, so far. This constitutes a research desiderate since these practices of resistance or failure appear just as significant for our present era as their “futurist” counterparts, and represent a cultural resource of inventive imagination, coping, and justification that calls for exploration and critical evaluation.
This interdisciplinary HWK study group focuses on the variety of ways of “rejecting futures”. This includes old and new cultural practices of refusing to deal with tomorrow, resisting provision and planning, or rejecting responsibility for future developments, and resorting to fate, trust, or chance instead (e.g., use of random generators in decision making, implementing the right not to know, conveying durable powers of attorney). Sometimes unpredictability and contingency guide such cultural practices and sometimes rather explicit philosophical or spiritual doctrines (e.g., practices of “mindfulness”, cyclical conceptions of time). Other approaches are influenced by more pessimistic stances, a rehabilitation of failure in the sense of plans going awry, or a defeatist retreat to the past (e.g., Punk’s “No future” slogan, queer temporalities, nostalgia). Furthermore, there are movements based on theories and worldviews that deny or delimit the ‘future’ (e.g., anti-natalism, apocalyptic expectations and secular end-of-the-world scenarios). Our group brings together perspectives from anthropology, sociology, history, the arts, bioethics, philosophy, Science and Technology Studies (among others), as well as from individuals directly implicated in and affected, in an effort to understand and discuss “rejecting futures”.
Contact: Prof. Dr. Mark Schweda ([email protected])
TriaDe - Eastern European live-in carers in domestic care triads for people with dementia
Principal Investigators: Dr. Milena von Kutzleben (Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Division of Organizational Health Services Research), Prof. Dr. Jo Reichertz (Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen), Prof. Dr. Mark Schweda (Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Division of Ethics in Medicine)
Project Members (Division of Ethics in Medicine): Matthias Hauer, M.A.
Funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)
Funding Reference: 509885213
Duration: 2023-2026
In Germany, the majority of people with dementia live in private households. Relatives who care for them are often overwhelmed by their manifold responsibilities. In these situations, caregivers who live with the person with dementia for a limited period of time can appear as a solution: so-called live-in carers, who mostly come from Eastern European countries. There is a lack of empirical evidence on how these care-arrangements affect the situation of people in need of care and their relatives. The new project combines expertise from health services research, nursing science, and medical ethics at the University of Oldenburg and communication scientist at the Kulturwissenschaftliches Intitut Essen in order to shed light on these questions.
The ethical subproject focuses on the attribution and allocation of care responsibilities within the triad. We will analyze moral conflicts in the triadic constellation between relatives, people in need of care, and live-in carers from an ethical point of view. In addition, we will examine legal and public media discourses in order to contextualize the project findings. The central goal of the study is to develop a nuanced picture of domestic care of people with dementia by live-in carers in order to contribute to an empirically informed ethical assessment of these care-arrangements.
Contact: Matthias Hauer, M.A. ([email protected])
Website: https://uole.de/ovf/projekte/triade [GER]
Theoretical, ethical and social implications of AI for neuropsychiatric research and practice (TESIComP)
Principal Investigators: Prof. Dr. Mark Schweda (Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg), Prof. Dr. Stefan Teipel (Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen e.V. (DZNE) in der Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft, Standort Rostock), Prof. Dr. Oliver Gruber (Universitätsmedizin Heidelberg)
Project Members (Division of Ethics in Medicine): Eike Buhr
Funding: Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR)
Funding Reference: 01GP2216A
Duration: 2023-2026
AI-based approaches such as machine learning using neural networks are increasingly being used in neuropsychiatric research and practice. They are intended to enable more precise prediction, early detection and diagnosis, and thus also more effective treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. However, the basis of the results obtained with these methods of computational psychiatry is often no longer fully comprehensible for professional users as well as for patients and their relatives. This opacity of AI-based approaches raises fundamental theoretical, ethical, and social questions for neuropsychiatric research and practice: How do AI-based expert systems change our understanding of psychiatry and neuropsychiatric disorders? What are their implications for the role of the clinician, the identity of patients, and their relationship?
The overarching goal of this interdisciplinary collaborative project is to empirically identify, ethically evaluate, and scientifically assess theoretical and practical implications and consequences of computational psychiatry at the levels of neuropsychiatric research and clinical practice. The focus is on two prominent use cases of AI-based approaches: Alzheimer's disease and depressive disorders. To address the aforementioned questions, the project combines ethical and social science methods. In a first theoretical phase, we conduct literature analyses, expert and focus groups interviews to develop an up-to-date and practical overview of the state of the art. In a second explorative phase, we use qualitative social research methods to analyze the views of researchers, clinicians, and patients. The third, evaluative phase is dedicated to the scientific-theoretical and ethical evaluation of the data material and includes a Delphi procedure with leading experts. The results will be published in scientific journals and will be incorporated into empirically informed ethical recommendations for psychiatric practice, technology development and policy makers.
Contact: Eike Buhr ([email protected])
Website: http://www.ki-neuropsychiatrie.de/ [GER]
Cross-border Health Data Compass as a Basis for Comparative Studies (TP1 CHARE-GD I)
Principal Investigators: Prof. Dr. Andreas Hein, Prof. Dr. Mark Schweda, Prof. Dr. Jochen Mierau, Prof. Dr. Viola Angelini, Dr. Tobias Vogt
Project Members: Dr. Sebastian Specht (OFFIS)
Funding: Ministry of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony (MWK)
Duration: 2021–2024
As a mainly rural area with only few high-density urban centers, the interplay between life course health and mobility and (socioeconomic) environment is at the center of interest for the Ems-Dollart region. Comparative studies that aim to tackle questions of life course health and mobility need reliable small area data and preferably individual level data on demography, socio economics, transport infrastructure and health system structure. This is also decisive for the future facilitation of cross-border health services provision and healthcare utilization based on such comparative research. In an iterative process, this sub-project of CHARE-GD I will develop a Cross-border Health Data Compass (CHDC) to support studies in public health, health services research and clinical research that will investigate similarities and differences in care on both sides of the border and support the improvement of healthcare utilization for patients in the region. In a requirement-analysis track, different groups of stakeholders will be interviewed about their needs and existing data sources will be identified. In a second technical implementation track, the results feed into a software engineering process where data structures will be defined and implemented. In a third evaluation track, the scope, presentation and functionality of the aggregated and harmonized data will be reviewed by the stakeholders / principal investigators of the three subprojects in focus group discussions and will be released in accordance with the data protection regulations of the countries. The Cross-Border Health Data Compass will constitute an important basis and tool for future comparative cross-border projects. It will provide researchers with national and cross border data and facilitate access to data sources. Researchers in clinical/study contexts are provided with means to aggregate research data into cross border indicators. In establishing a cross-border perspective for service provision and healthcare utilization, it will increase the potential benefit for patients and healthcare providers alike.
Contact: Dr. Sebastian Specht ([email protected])
Project Website: uol.de/en/cbi/research/projects
The Use of Closed Doors in Dementia Wards. Comparing Cultural and Moral Perspectives as well as Contexts for Mutual Learning in the Cross-border Region (CHARE-GD II Subproject V)
Principal Investigators: Prof. Dr. Mark Schweda, Dr. Elleke Landeweer (University of Groningen)
Project Members: Aurelija Dagilyte-Drevel (University of Groningen)
Funding: Ministry of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony (MWK)
Funding Reference: ZN3831
Duration: 2022–2023
A closed-door policy in dementia care units is contested as it limits individual freedom and mobility of residents, raising moral questions regarding the right balance between freedom and safety. In both German and Dutch wards, various strategies have been implemented to deal with this problem. However, there is a lack of knowledge on which interventions are used for what reasons, under what circumstances, and to what effect. Against this backdrop, the project pursues the following research questions: What are the interventions and strategies used to prevent residents from wandering outside the premises and/ or safeguard residents’ health and wellbeing in both regions as well as their perceived success? What are differences and similarities between the two regions and between the healthcare professionals’ moral perspectives regarding the use of closed doors? How can both sides of the border improve their practice through knowledge exchange and mutual learning as well as dissemination of our findings? The study uses a mixed method design, starting with a literature search to map studied interventions and their considered pros and cons, as well as a document and policy analysis. The quantitative part collects data in 4 care units per region regarding 10-15 residents per unit. For the qualitative part, interviews with stakeholders and observations will be conducted within the care units. Per unit, first outcomes will be discussed in a heterogeneous focus group meeting. Results per unit and region will be compared and thematically analyzed combined with an ethical analysis. For valorization and implementation of results, site visits between the regions will be organized and a symposium to develop shared learning lessons will be held.
Contact: Dr. Elleke Landeweer ([email protected])
Project Website: uol.de/en/cbi/research/projects
Moral Conflicts in Familial Dementia Care Involving Migrant Live-in Carers in Germany and Israel: A Comparative-Ethical Exploration and Analysis (MoDeCare)
Principal Investigators: Dr. Merle Weßel (Ethics in Medicine, Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg) (PI), Dr. Milena von Kutzleben (Organizational Health Services Research, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg), Prof. Dr. Mark Schweda (Ethics in Medicine, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg), Prof. Liat Ayalon (Bar Ilan University)
Project Members (Division of Ethics in Medicine): Dr. Merle Weßel, Anna-Eva Nebowsky M.A.
Funding: VolkswagenStiftung
Funding Reference: 11-76251-2684/2021 ZN 3864
Duration: 2022–2024
Population ageing leads to a higher prevalence of dementia and thus an increasing need for care for those affected. Dementia Disease is characterized by the gradual loss of cognitive capabilities and an increasing need for help and care. This need cannot be fulfilled sufficiently by professional care workers and informal carers. In many countries, migrant live-in carers have become a common solution to fill this care void, e.g. Germany and Israel. However, these live-in care arrangements are prone to considerable social, legal, and moral difficulties. Nowadays, migrant care workers, employed by families, are expected to provide 24-hour care while living with their patients. Israel has created binding legal regulations whereas, in Germany, a legal framework is absent.
This project focuses on the comparative empirical exploration of moral conflicts in live-in care arrangements in Germany and Israel and their ethical reflection. Therefore, different levels will be examined. In the triad itself the moral and intercultural conflicts, the distribution of roles within the families, and the caring responsibilities are important aspects. On the meso level the interaction between family and agency will be analyzed, as well as the response to the need for more care capacities, regulatory differences, and the consequences brought by current neoliberal development on the macro level. The data will be collected by conducting group interviews within the triad with the person with dementia, the live-in, and the relatives and with groups of experts.
The aim is to develop a more profound understanding of moral conflicts in live-in dementia care in Germany and Israel in order to formulate empirically informed ethical recommendations for care providers and policy makers.
Contact: Dr. Merle Weßel ([email protected]), Anna-Eva Nebowsky ([email protected])
Project Website: uol.de/en/health-services-research/divisions/ethics-in-medicine/research/research-projects/modecare