Institutional contexts, health, and health inequalities among young people. A life stage approach
Project management: Prof. Dr. Matthias Richter
Coordination: Dr. Irene Moor
Project members SP3: Max Herke, Irene Moor
Duration: 01.07.2019 to 31.12.2022
Promoter: DFG
The Research Group 2723 (FOR 2723) "Institutional Contexts, Health and Health Inequalities among Young People. A life stage approach" was approved by the German Research Foundation (DFG) on Dec. 7, 2018 for an initial, three-year funding phase and began its work in July 2019 under the leadership of Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg.
FOR 2723 investigates how institutional contexts from birth to young adulthood are associated with the emergence of health inequalities. The project is the first DFG-funded research group in the area of medical sociology/public health research.
FOR 2723 brings together leading scientists from six universities and research institutions. In addition to the MLU Halle Wittenberg, the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, the University of Heidelberg, the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich and the Robert Koch Institute are involved in the collaborative project.
Aims of FOR 2723
The overall aim of Research Group 2723 (FOR 2723) is to better understand the development of health inequalities among young people and the underlying causes. FOR 2723 forms an interdisciplinary cluster of excellence capable of addressing the complexity of the topic.
FOR 2723 goes beyond previous research by a) following a rigorous life stage approach that takes into account the specificities of each life stage from birth to young adulthood, and b) looking at the interplay between young people and the institutional contexts in which they live and act.
The overarching goals are:
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to systematically summarize the existing evidence on the role of different institutional contexts in health and health inequalities from childhood to young adulthood,
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to empirically investigate whether and how the most important institutional contexts in Germany are related to the emergence of health inequalities and
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to integrate the findings of the individual subprojects into a comprehensive theoretical model of the central mechanisms on an individual and contextual level.
Building on reviews of existing evidence, FOR 2723 will primarily conduct secondary data analyses in the first funding phase. The subprojects will focus on contexts that are central instances of socialization, such as family, kindergarten, school, university, and educational institutions, but also on the health care system, which plays a key role in healthy development.
FOR 2723 combines explanatory factors and mechanisms at several levels of analysis, taking into account specific explanatory approaches for individual life stages and contexts. It will thus make a substantial contribution to the implementation of an interdisciplinary multilevel perspective on health inequalities over the life course at the interface of sociology, social epidemiology, and public health.
Further information: https://www.for2723.de