The 20th Annual Conference of the German Society for Epidemiology (DGEPI) took place in Münster on 23-25 September 2025. Prof Dr Lars Schwettmann and Ida Schulze Kalthoff from our department took part.

Prof Dr Lars Schwettmann gave a poster presentation on "Socioeconomic Status, Alcohol Use and All-Cause Mortality: Results from the Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP)", Ida Schulze Kalthoff presented the poster "Socioeconomic Status, Regional Deprivation and Alcohol Use: Results from the Baseline Examination of the German National Cohort (NAKO)".

On 15 September 2025, Prof. Dr Lars Schwettmann and Stefanie Beinert from the Department of Health Economics at the University of Oldenburg presented the xPEDition Schmerz project in their lecture at The Smart House Oldenburg. They presented the background, objectives and scientific basis of the new awareness campaign, which is funded as part of the EU Interreg VI Germany-Netherlands programme, and took the audience on a vivid journey through the world of pain.

Together with the participants, key questions were explored: What is pain? How does it arise and why does it sometimes persist even though the cause has long since disappeared? What can we do to prevent chronic pain or live better with it?

The lecture combined scientific findings with everyday examples, interactive elements and short quizzes. Many visitors took the opportunity to contribute their own experiences and ask questions, resulting in a lively exchange between specialist knowledge and lived experience.

It was shown how the cross-border xPEDition Pain campaign brings these topics to the region through easy-to-understand information, digital formats and local events that help people to better understand and actively manage pain.

xPEDition Pain aims to convey a better understanding of pain, strengthen health literacy in the population and thus reduce chronic pain in the long term. The campaign is aimed in particular at people in the German-Dutch Ems-Dollart region and combines digital and analogue formats ranging from social media offers and explanatory videos to workshops in schools, companies and communities. The presentation made it clear that the project focuses on participatory, multilingual and scientifically based communication in order to make knowledge about pain accessible and initiate sustainable changes in dealing with chronic pain.

Further information on the project can be found here.

On her trip through the region - with the aim of gaining a direct impression of central projects in the districts and the impact of EU funding programmes - Melanie Walter, Minister for Europe and Regional Development of Lower Saxony, also stopped off at the University of Oldenburg.

Here she learnt about "Health4DE-NL", a project of the Cross-Border Institute of Healthcare Systems and Prevention (CBI).

"We are pursuing the goal of driving forward immediate improvements for the care of people in this region and at the same time developing approaches that can also be applied in other regions," explained Prof Dr Hans Gerd Nothwang, Dean of the School of Medicine and Health Sciences.

"With the HEALTH4DE-NL project, we are promoting sustainable cross-border cooperation between the relevant healthcare institutions in the northern German-Dutch border region. This networking has great potential for the healthcare of people in the region - and also for the regional economy," said Prof Dr Lars Schwettmann, project leader on the German side of the research network.

Further information on the project can be found in the article on the CBI website.

We would like to thank Minister Walter for her visit!

Photos: Daniel Schmidt/UOL

Hip or knee replacement operations are regarded as effective measures for relieving pain and restoring functionality in patients with severe osteoarthritis. Nevertheless, there are considerable differences in individual treatment outcomes. A recent analysis as part of the prospective MobilE-TRA 2 cohort study suggests that personality traits, in particular self-efficacy, could play a central role in the recovery process.

As part of the study, 147 patients aged 60 and over were surveyed before and three months after surgery. The results show that a higher level of self-efficacy was associated with a significant improvement in both quality of life and functional health in patients after hip replacement. For knee replacement patients, there was a positive correlation between self-efficacy and general health perception. In contrast, willingness to take risks in the area of health and future orientation had no significant influence on the healing process.

These results emphasise the importance of psychological resources for successful rehabilitation after arthroplasty. They suggest that measures to promote self-efficacy can have a positive influence on recovery after hip or knee replacement.

The article has been published as an open access article and is freely accessible (link: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12955-025-02374-y).

The 17th Annual Conference of the German Society for Health Economics (dggö) took place at Paderborn University on 24 and 25 March 2025. The theme of the conference was "Ageing and Health".

Prof Dr Lars Schwettmann and Christian Hans from our department took part. Prof. Dr Lars Schwettmann gave a presentation on "Medical Decision Criteria for the Use of Inhaled Nitric Oxide in Preterm Infants with Pulmonary Hypertension: A Discrete Choice Experiment from Germany", Christian Hans presented a paper on "Zusammenhang regionaler Deprivation mit dem Zugang zu hausärztlicher Versorgung: Cross-sectional study with spatial observation data".

In addition to the successful presentations, there is good news from the general meeting. Prof Dr Lars Schwettmann was elected Deputy Chair of the dggö and will host the dggö annual conference in Oldenburg in 2027.