Research group FamiLy

News: The research group FamiLy starts the second promotion stage

The research group “FamiLy – family health in the life course” at Witten/Herdecke University and Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences, which is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, has successfully started its second promotion phase. Twelve new doctoral students, two post-docs and two research coordinators have joined the collaborating research group in its second stage, which will continue for further three years (from June 2015 to May 2018).

Objectives

Besides supervising doctorates, the research college aims at generating comprehensive knowledge on questions concerning family health, thus promoting the scientific development in the field of nursing and midwifery science.

Based on a life course perspective, examining the health, illness and long-term care in families is the focus of the research college. The results are to be applied in the practical fields of nursing and midwifery in order to develop concepts for stabilizing and supporting families in the various stages of life – from pregnancy to the end-of-life. Thus, the research college responds to the immense importance of the family with regard to coping with illnesses and improving health, and consequently has a high social relevance.

Topics focussed by FamiLy

• Health and health behavior of young families during the family formation phase
• How young families cope with illness
• How families cope over time with the need for long-term care
• Elderly people in the context of long-term care and the end-of-life phase of individual family members
• Critical events during the life course
• Social determinants of health
• The meaning and significance of new family forms/doing family
• Patterns and the role of the family in the utilization of available services

Presentation of the research group Family

Poster of the research group Family