International Week
Lehrende und Forschende der HSBI laden internationale Kolleg*innen aus Lehre, Praxis und Forschung aus gleichen oder verwandten Disziplinen an alle Campusstandorte der HSBI ein, um eine Woche lang an Lehrveranstaltungen und Workshops mitzuwirken. Abgerundet wird das Angebot der IW mit einem bunten Rahmenprogramm für alle Statusgruppen der HSBI. Weitere Informationen: Link
2026
Selbstbestimmung von Menschen mit intellektueller Beeinträchtigung
Frau Sibylla Strolz vom Institut für Soziale Arbeit im Lebensverlauf (ISAL) der Ostschweizer Fachhochschule folgte der Einladung im Rahmen der Internationalen Woche. In der Internationalen Woche wurde der Frage nachgegagen, wie die Selbstbestimmung von Menschen mit intellektueller Beeinträchtigung gestärkt werden kann. Frau Strolz stellte das Projekt SEGEL vor. Die zentrale Frage des partizipativen Forschungsprojekts lautete “ Wie können schwierige Entscheide rund um das Thema Selbstbestimmung systematisch und auf Augenhöhe besprochen werden?“. Im Rahmen des Besuchs erfolgte die Vorstellung des Thema in der Lehrveranstaltung „Assistenz´ als professionelle Haltung und sozialrechtlicher Anspruch“ im FB Sozialwesen. Neben einem regen Austausch im FB Gesundheit gab es einen übergeordneteten Austausch mit dem FB Sozialwesen, pro-Werk von Bethel, dem FB Gesundheit und online zugeschaltet das Forschungsbüro für Menschenrechte von Lebensgroß Graz (Österreich).
2025
Webinar: The Offline Role in Promoting Digital Health Literacy – How much offline is needed in online?
With the rapid digitalization in healthcare, digital health literacy is becoming increasingly important. Current discussions surrounding digital health literacy predominantly focus on what happens online. However, the extent and manner in which individuals engage with digital health services are significantly shaped by their social context. This encompasses social norms and expectations that govern interpersonal interactions.
For instance, the choice of health apps among young people is greatly influenced by their peer groups and the educational approaches adopted by schools regarding technology usage.
Individuals with intellectual disability face significant barriers in accessing digital health services due to the persistent digital divide, necessitating targeted support and interventions to ensure equitable access to these critical resources.
The aim of the webinar is to explore and discuss how and to what extent online and offline elements can be effectively considered together to promote digital health literacy.
speaker (in order to the program schedule):
Professor Diane Levin-Zamir is Director of the National Department of Health Education and Promotion of Clalit, Israel’s largest health service organization, and Professor of Health Promotion in the School of Public Health in University of Haifa. Diane specializes in action research in health promotion in community primary care, hospital and media settings, in media health literacy, measuring health literacy, and was the principal investigator of the Israel National Health Literacy Survey and is Research Co-Chair for the WHO Action Network on Measuring Population and Organizational health Literacy (M-POHL).
Dr. Kamil J. Wrona is chair of the working group Digital Health Promotion and Prevention of the German Society for Social Medicine and Prevention. Currently, he is working as a senior researcher and lecturer at Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences and Bielefeld University. He has always focused on population and health sociology, particularly the sociostructural conditions of health and disease, as well as on ePublic Health topics. During his time at HSBI, he conducted research on (digitally supported) prevention and health promotion, (digital) health literacy, population health and community health, as well as the use of serious games and gamification to promote health behavior and health knowledge.
Dr. Rachel Skoss is a senior research fellow at The Kids Research Institute Australia and Health Program Consultant at Microboards Australia. Rachel’s research focus is on health literacy of people with intellectual disability, their families and supporters. Her research regarding how people with intellectual disability are supported with their health has now led to the project with Microboards Australia, developing a health planning program for people with complex needs. Rachel’s work is informed by strong stakeholder engagement in the disability and health sectors, together with lived experience of parenting a young person with intellectual disability.
Dr. Dirk Bruland is a senior researcher at Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences since 2018. His research focus is on promoting health and self-management of people with intellectual disabilities. He currently has two research projects: 1) Development of a framework to promote digital health literacy for people with intellectual disabilities 2) A series of workshops to discuss effective promoting of digital health literacy among people in disadvantaged situations.
Professor Susie Sykes is Professor of Public Health and Health Promotion at London South Bank University where she is the Director of the University’s Health and Wellbeing Research Centre. Her research interests focus on critical health literacy, community focused public health, intervention evaluation and workforce development. She leads PHIRST South Bank, a UK based public health intervention evaluation Centre. She is Vice Chair of the International Union of Health promotion and Education Global Working Group for Health Literacy.
Supported by:
- Working group digital health promotion and prevention of the German Society for Social Medicine and Prevention (DGSMP)
- Interest group “Health Literacy of People with Intellectual Disability and Cognitive Impairment” of the International Health Literacy Association (IHLA)
2024
Gesundheit von Menschen mit Lernschwierigkeiten mit dem Fokus auf Alltagsbewegungen und Sport.
Dr. Mag.rer.nat. Christoph Kreinbucher-Bekerle forscht an der Universität Graz am Institut für Bewegungswissenschaften, Sport und Gesundheit. In seinem Vortrag im Rahmen der International Week verweist er auf die gesunheitliche Vulnerabilität von Menschen mit Lernschwierigkeiten und den Einfluss von geringer Bewegung auf die Gesundheit. Der Vortrag fand im Anschluss an das eigenen Forschungsprojekt „Mit Schwung und Energie durch den Tag“ sowie zu den Arbeiten zur ‚bewegungsbezogenen Gesundheitskompetenz“ statt. Aus dem Treffen ist das EU kofinanzierte Projekt PASpo-ID hervorgegangen.
2023
Nursing Sciences Research Projects –
Advanced Nurse Practitioners Experiences from Ireland
Nursing is becoming increasingly important due to demographic developments in the integration assistance of people with intellectual disabilities. The course will present the establishment of nursing care for people with intellectual disabilities in Ireland with a focus on Advanced Nursing Practitioners. The differences between Ireland and Germany will be discussed and what can be learned from the system in Ireland (with regard to the nursing science projects).
Judy Ryan is Director of the Nursing and Midwifery Planning and Development Unit (NMPDU) South-East (Ireland).
Maurice Healy is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner specialising in Intellectual Disability in Ireland and has over 36 years’ experience as a Nurse, Lecturer and Staff Trainer. He currently works for the Brothers of Charity (Ireland) covering the Galway region. He trained as a Registered Nurse in Intellectual Disabilities in 1987, subsequently qualifying as a Behaviour Therapist. He continued his education by completing a Diploma in Training & Development & a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. He then completed his Master of Science in Intellectual Disabilities at the University of Birmingham in 2012.
This was integrated in the course:
Advanced Nursing Practice
In her presentation, Daniela Lehwaldt introduces the basics of Advanced Practice Nursing. Nurses with APN qualification are professionals with a master’s degree. The activities of an APN is characterized by a high degree of specialization. They offer patients extended and highly specialized nursing care for their specific health problems. Coupled with an extended range of nursing tasks, progress is being made in patient care. The lecture will also introduce the APN Master’s program at Dublin City University, and reports on the development of APN internationally.
Daniela Lehwaldt, PhD, MSc, RN, Dublin City University, School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Nursing. She teaches on the undergraduate BSc in Nursing programme and the MSc Nursing / Healthcare Practice. As Academic Lead in Nursing, she works with staff within the Nursing Group, the Head of School and the School Executive. Daniela Lehwaldt is an expert in Advanced Practice Nursing (APN). Her past clinical experience and her extensive involvement in conferences, publications and projects have led to global recognition and a voluntary leadership position with the International Council of Nurses (ICN) APN / NP Network as their current Chair.
2022
Health literacy as a basis for communicating health information – The impact of social context and digitalization.
Health literacy, defined as individuals’ ability to find, understand, critique, and use health-related information, has the potential to empower people to make positive health choices. Historically and clinically, health literacy has primarily been understood as an individual construct. However, recent research highlights the role of social contexts in acquiring knowledge and making health-related decisions. This includes the impact of ongoing digitalization, understood here as digital social change. In this event the impact of the social context and digitalization on health literacy will be discussed.
Program:
- Warm Welcome (Änne-Dörte Latteck, Dirk Bruland))
- Health Literacy: An overview of the state of the art (30 minutes, Tessa Schulenkorf, Germany)
- Relevance of Digital Health Literacy (30 minutes, Diane Levin-Zamir, Israel)
- Health literacy and social context (30 minutes, Joy Agner, U.S.A.)
- Sum up and Good By (Dirk Bruland).
Speakers:
It is an honor to welcome following speakers to the HSBI:
Tessa Schulenkorf, M.A. (TU Munich) has been working in the Health Literacy in Childhood and Adolescence Consortium for several years and is currently developing an intervention for schoolchildren. Her research focuses on health literacy in childhood and adolescence and the interconnections of media and health literacy. She is currently pursuing a PhD at Bielefeld University.
Dr. Joy Agner is an Assistant Professor of Research at the University of Southern California. She received her Master’s in Occupational Science and Therapy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her PhD in Community and Cultural Psychology from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
2021
Health Information for people with intellectual disabilities. Promoting health with target-orientated information preparation.
Three researchers present their results and point out focal points in the dissemination of information, from an institution view, to communication with external health professionals (GPs) and to inform a whole population.
The presentations were recorded. These can be provided upon request. Please write an email to: dirk.bruland@hsbi.de.
Program
| Time | Minutes | Programme content |
| 14.00 | 10 minutes |
Warm Welcoming and Background
Prof. Dr. Ä.-D. Latteck (University of Applied Sciences Bielefeld, Germany) |
|
14.10
|
30 minutes and 10 minutes discussion |
Health Matters Programme: Promoting health where we live, learn, work, and play! Dr. H. Bergstöm (Akademiskt Primärvårdscentrum, Stockholm, Sweden) |
| 14.50 | 10 minutes | Break |
| 15.00 |
30 minutes and 10 minutes discussion |
‘I have to explain to him’: How companions broker mutual understanding between patients with intellectual disabilities and health care practitioners Dr. D. Chinn (Kings College, London, UK) |
| 15.40 | 10 minutes | Break |
| 15.50 |
30 minutes and 10 minutes discussion |
Corona and how to create information for a whole population group. First results. M. Lynch, L. Mc Cormack (RTI International, USA) |
| 16.30 | 10 Minutes |
Summarizing and concluding words Dr. D. Bruland (University of Applied Sciences Bielefeld, Germany) |
Speakers:
Dr. Helena Bergström is currently evaluating the Health Matters program, aiming at improving health literacy and empowerment among adults with intellectual disabilities. The program is developed in the US, and are now adapted to and tested in a Swedish context. One of her main interests is to promote health equity by targeting health among people with disabilities.
Dr. Deborah Chinn is a clinical psychologist who works with adults with intellectual disabilities, and a lecturer in the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care at King’s College London. The current focus of her research interests is health communication involving people with intellectual disabilities.
Molly Lynch is an experienced mixed-methods researcher and evaluator with content expertise in disaster preparedness (e.g., pandemic influenza, Ebola, Zika) and a communications researcher with expertise in media content analyses, formative research, campaign development and design thinking methodologies (e.g., journey mapping, co-creation, etc). Ms. Lynch works with a variety of non-profit and governmental clients—including the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), March of Dimes and the Arthritis Foundation—to conduct research and evaluation to inform program development.
2020
Health promotion for people with Intellectual disabilities with a focus on physical activity.
As an alternative to the cancelled workshop during the International Week at Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences in May this year, we were very delighted to invite to the online event below and were proud to have gained high-profile speakers for this event. The event has taken place on 16th June 2020 via the online-videomeeting-tool zoom.
There is a report about the event in the internal newspaper „Flurfunk“ (Flurfunk – Bericht).
Background (brief desription)
Today, low levels of physical activity are a great health problem for society as a whole. According to the World Health Organization physical inactivity is associated with an increased risk for chronic diseases and as an important risk factor for global mortality (6% of deaths globally). Compared to the general population chronic diseases occur more frequently and often earlier in lifetime in people with intellectual difficulties (PWID). For PWID there are many challenges in social activities and they have a different access to health-related resources than the general population. A positive effect of physical activity on prevention and health preservation has been proven. To our knowledge interventions to promote physical activity in everyday life for people with intellectual disabilities are rare.
In this context we would like to provide background information about physical activity, physical activity -related health competences, at interventions for people with intellectual disability and a closer look at a complex intervention for health promotion including physical activity and nutrition for people with intellectual disability. The aim is to show and discuss how health literacy and healthy behaviors can be improved by increasing knowledge, preferences, skills and self-efficacy.
Timeline
Prof. Ä.-D. Latteck, Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences, Germany
Dr. J. Carl,Friedrich-Alexander-University, Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany
Dr. Dirk Bruland, Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences, Germany
11:10 Break
Dr. H. Bergström, Karolinska Institutet Stockholm, Sweden
12:20 Summarizing and concluding words
Introduction of the speakers in alphabetical order:
Helena Bergström is a public health scientist within Region Stockholm in Sweden, working with health promotion targeting people with intellectual disabilities. She developed a health promotion intervention in community residences, focusing on diet and physical activity, and is now working on a Swedish adapation of the American intervention HealthMatters.
Dirk Bruland do research work at the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences since 2018 with a focus on promoting physical acitivity and health literacy in people with intellectual disability. He is project leader of the research projects “Improvement of physical activity and related health literacy in people with intellectual disabilities” and “Geko-MmgB: Explanatory videos to promote health literacy for people with intellectual disabilities”.
Johannes Carl is with the Department of Sport Science and Sport at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg. His research projects adopt a multidimensional perspective on healthy, physically active lifestyles by integrating cognitive, motivational, volitional, and physical requirements. Through the lens of physical activity-related health competence, he conducted several studies in different populations, including individuals with COPD, persons with multiple sclerosis, and apprentices in nursing care and car mechatronics. In 2018, he founded a network in German-speaking countries for the promotion of research in the area of physical activity-related health competence (Netzwerk Bewegungsbezogene Gesundheitskompetenz).”
Änne-Dörte Latteck is professor for nursing science at the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences. She led several projects with different research approaches focusing on people with intellectual disabilities. These include prevention and health promotion, health literacy, polypharmacy and the promotion of physical activity.