Midwives practice in clinical and non-clinical settings under challenging working conditions. These can influence workload and satisfaction, interprofessional collaboration and quality of care. The “point system for operationalizing utilization in the delivery room (POAK)” instrument can reduce workload and increase interprofessional collaboration and quality of care. Since the aspects listed have not yet been systematically examined in Germany nor has the instrument been evaluated, there is an urgent need for research. The aim of the study is to use a multi-method approach to take stock of the health and work situation of midwives and to evaluate the effects of the “POAK” instrument and its implementation.

In three modules that build on each other and complement each other, an inventory is first carried out using participant observation and a nationwide, quantitative questionnaire survey among midwives. In the further course, qualitative interview studies will be carried out with midwives and doctors as part of a cross-sectional and a longitudinal study in delivery rooms that use or implement “POAK”.

The study can provide relevant insights into the health and work situation of midwives in the clinical and non-clinical sectors. In addition, insights can be gained into health-promoting workplace design and how to ensure a high quality of care, so that midwives stay in the profession in a healthy and long-term manner and patient safety for women and children is guaranteed.

Sponsoring institution: Professional Association for Health Services and Welfare Care (BGW)

As a result of the unequal distribution of occupational medical and occupational psychology resources in Germany, there are increasing reports of inadequate care in companies, especially micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). However, there is currently a lack of reliable data on the supply situation. It can also be assumed that many care offerings have not been adequately evaluated in terms of the quality of the structure, processes and care outcomes. For this reason, the junior research group aims to examine the current occupational medical and occupational psychology care situation as well as future needs and further develop these based on the project results. The primary goal is to develope approaches to increase the quantity and quality of care, even with limited human resources. As part of the research project, both extensive scientific analyzes and quality indicators for the evaluation of company care offerings will be created and tested. The study results achieved form the basis for the subsequent development and implementation of a telemedical care offer in the form of a multimodal online platform, which is intended to support MSMEs in particular in making use of occupational health and psychological care offers. In a modular form, information on occupational health protection through improved occupational medical and occupational psychological care is conveyed and recommendations are presented in the context of best practice examples. In another module, a concept for connecting occupational health care structures to the telematics infrastructure using digitalization potential is being developed.

Funding: BAuA (Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Occupational Medicine) and BMAS (Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs)

The main goal of the interdisciplinary project "AI-healthy ship" is to maintain and improve the individual health and well-being of seafarers on board of merchant ships of the participating shipping companies. Since they do not have access to health and fitness staff during their typically several-month stays on the ship, an alternative form of personal instruction is needed to maintain or optimize their personal health. In the "AI-healthy ship" project, this is done for the first time with the help of innovative technologies that use the principles of "artificial intelligence" (AI). Whether a particular health promotion measure is suitable at a point X in time to improve the well-being of an individual crew member depends on many human, environmental and ship-related factors. An IT application to be developed within the project period will offer increasingly more tailored recommendations for individual health measures to choose from based on the collected information. It is intended to provide seafarers with increasingly more adept support in health-related self-management and fatigue prevention through "machine learning". The system can fill a care niche for the entire setting, but also for other working and living environments that are not focused on health promotion.

Project partner: Institute for Occupational and Maritime Medicine (ZfAM) / Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE); Lionizers GmbH; Peter Döhle Schiffahrts-KG; Reederei Nord

Funded by: The project has a total eligible volume of 3.38 million euros. This is made up of funds from the European Union's European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (1.32 million euros) and state funds from the social welfare and justice authorities (1.31 million euros); the project partners are also contributing own funds of 750,000 euros.

The “Asthma LINDern Study” aims to collect scientific and medical insights about the course of allergic respiratory diseases of employees who are on allergen avoidance or allergen reduction in order to derive prevention recommendations for those affected.

Funding: DGUV (German Social Accident Insurance)

Due to structural conditions, the maritime transport sector poses risks in the area of communicable diseases. In order to minimise the spread of endemic and invasive pathogens, an effective approach to preventing and managing infectious incidents is of central importance. In Germany, five ports are designated under the IHR and must have certain core capacities in place at all times for immediate response to cross-border health threats. The overall objective of the research project is to harmonise and strengthen the necessary core competences of the German IGV ports for health security in shipping and to bundle resources on a scientific basis. This is to be achieved mainly by identifying areas of harmonisation and their design by means of a best practice study as well as the development and testing of concepts for overarching structures of the five IGV ports.

The research project is funded with 552,000€.

Funding: Federal Ministry of Health

The general (conceptual) objective of HEALTHY SAILING is to contribute to improve quality of passenger shipping services brought to society, facilitating recovery from COVID-19 pandemic, making the passenger shipping sector, safer, more resilient, competitive and efficient by producing evidence for infection control, validated prevention, mitigation, management measures and training to be used for policy making and ship operations, whose implementation will reduce public health incidents on-board large passenger ships.

27 partners consisting of university institutions and industry are collaborating on the project. The total funding amount is €3.7 million.

Funding: Horizon Europe Framework Programme (HORIZON) - Project ID 101069764

Healthy Sailing Website

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Several randomized trials from US and Europe have demonstrated the capability of low dose computed tomography (LDCT) to detect lung cancer early and significantly reduce mortality. Since the US have rolled out LDCT screening in 2013, several adjustments were needed to overcome difficulties of nationwide implementation, esp. regarding recruitment. Due to the heterogeneous landscape of lung cancer care in Europe, it is not realistic to believe that screening criteria and conditions from the highly scientific lung cancer screening trials are 1:1 transferrable to the real-world conditions in 27 different countries of the European Union. Backed by the expertise and network of all relevant European societies and stakeholders, SOLACE will assess the current state of play, needs and best practice of Lung Cancer Screening (LCS) in EU member states and produce a comprehensive guideline and implementation package covering all steps of the lung cancer screening pathway: evidence-based guidelines, technical papers, SOPs, documents regarding quality assurance, methodology, benefit-harm balance, cost-effectiveness. This package will be used to showcase de novo implementation. Moreover, SOLACE will design, plan and roll-out three pilot projects in 10 member states with more than 12000 participants to address key issues to increase participation: gender aspects, inequalities regarding hard-to-reach populations (social, ethnic, geographical) and higher risk individuals. Quality assurance, cost-effectiveness analysis with dedicated models for different healthcare systems, harms (radiation exposure, overdiagnosis, complications). SOLACE will establish the European Lung Cancer Screening Alliance (ELCSA) serving as a long-lasting interdisciplinary platform as a backbone for sustained implementation in all member states

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101101187.

Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HADEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

The aim of the PiBaV project is to present the current state of knowledge on the situation of occupational health care in micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and to conduct an exploratory pilot study to determine the needs and wishes for ensuring occupational health care for SMEs, especially in rural regions of Germany .

Sponsoring institution: Professional Association for Health Services and Welfare Care (BGW)

The aim is to develop, plan and implement a concept for scientific evaluation and quality assurance of screening programs such as the EVA-Lunge in order to be able to generate sound data on the implementation and effectiveness of early detection for lung cancer using LD-HRCT. Using quality indicators and performing analyses will allow to determine important outcome parameters such as the detection rate of lung cancer, the rate of so-called false-positive findings, the rate of diagnostic work-up after LD-HRCT examination or the number of potential recognition of occupational disease no. 4104 (lung cancer) generated from the screening program. Parameters will be recorded overall and stratified - e.g. according to examination round (initial, subsequent examinations), participant characteristics or region. Furthermore, attitudes towards, subjective perceptions of, and psychological strain in relation to EVA-Lunge among insured persons will be assed using qualitative research. Additionally, knowledge and attitudes towards lung cancer screening using LD-HRCT among physicians will be investigated.

Funding: German Social Accident Insurance - DGUV (Deutsche Gesetzliche Unfallversicherung)

The main objective of the medical part of the international multidisciplinary study “FAMA” is to measure the current level of fatigue and sleepiness of crews on board ferries crossing the English Channel.

The research project is funded with 19,000€.

Funding: Goverment of France

The overarching goal of the project is to comprehensively examine the work and health situation of FHH public administration employees who are integrated in digitalization processes. This takes place in a first module, exemplary within the FHH, in which a digital assessment system is introduced as a digitalization process. From this, recommendations for action for health-promoting work designs in the included work areas as well as measures for health promotion and prevention should derive. The project is funded with € 90,000.

Sponsoring institution: Personalamt FHH, Unfallkasse Nord

On behalf of the Federal Environment Agency, ZfAM is collecting representative exposure data for the alternative plasticiser id(2-ethylhexyl)terephthalate (DEHTP) in the adult German population. For some years now, DEHTP has been increasingly used as a substitute for the reprotoxic plasticiser di(ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP).

Funding: Federal Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt)

Intelligent lighting control systems open up the possibility of designing lighting profiles at shift workplaces according to functional and biological needs. However, scientific studies investigating the health effects are still lacking. The study "Light and Shift" will contribute to this.

Funding: German Social Accident Insurance - DGUV (Deutsche Gesetzliche Unfallversicherung)

In the project, a feasibility study is being carried out on ships of a northern German shipping company on the health management of seafarers on cargo ships with the integration of an eLearning platform.

Funding organization: Shipping company