>> The basic idea of establishing the focus on “Community Medicine” at the University of Greifswald was conceived shortly after reunification. At that time, the Science Council assessed and evaluated - one of the assessors was Prof. Dr. med. Dr. hc Peter C. Scriba, Chairman of the Medical Committee – the East German University Hospitals from 1987 to 1991. In the case of Greifswald, whose medical faculty has existed since the university was founded in 1456, the experts came to the conclusion that the focus on “community medicine” could best be located and expanded here. The development work began shortly afterwards with great enthusiasm, but this focus was only really institutionalized and provided with the appropriate budget from 2002 - with funds from the then Development East funding, set up to improve the clinical research infrastructure in the new federal states.
With the two newly appointed professors Dr. Thomas Kohlmann (formerly Lübeck) and Dr. Wolfgang Hoffmann (previously Bremen) gave life to the idea, which was gradually expanded and developed into an independent institute by both of them and further developed. Today we work in four departments - these include “General Medicine” (Head: Prof. Dr. med. Jean-François Chenot, MPH), “Clinical-Epidemiological Research” (Head: Prof. Dr. Henry Völzke), “Methods of Community Medicine (Head: Kohlmann) and “Health Care Epidemiology and Community Health” (Hoffmann) – around 200 employees. The institute is best known for the “Study of Health in Pomerania” led by Völzke - one of the largest German cohort studies ever, and the Health Care Epidemiology department, which Hoffmann is responsible for.
From today's perspective, one could assume that the idea for “community medicine” in Greifswald, the fifth largest city in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania with 56,700 inhabitants, came from the fact that the age pyramid had already been tipped here, thus providing a perfect environment for population-related health research. Not even close. Greifswald is the only university institute in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania to conduct research into population-related health research with the “Community Medicine” research laboratory, but not because test subjects are available en masse and in situ, so to speak. Greifswald, which together with Stralsund forms one of the four regional centers in the country, is, according to two studies from 2008, the “most dynamic” and the “youngest” city in Germany.
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