Focus on health

Prof Dr Wilm Quentin comes to the University of Bayreuth with a degree in medicine and a doctorate in health economics. Among other things, he will help shape teaching for medical students at the Upper Franconia Medical Campus. He will also be involved in the Environment, Climate Change and Health Master's degree programme. "Healthcare systems are changing - and they have to," says Prof Quentin. "They need to be better prepared for crises, which will increase in the future due to climate change. It is also worth looking at other countries to see what changes are being initiated there. I also want to work with my colleagues at the hospital and the students to find solutions for reducing the negative impact of healthcare on the environment."

Before Prof Dr Wilm Quentin came to the University of Bayreuth, he spent years researching healthcare systems worldwide at the Technical University of Berlin. Together with the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, he analysed European health reforms in comparison. Since 2021, he has headed the German West-African Centre for Global Health and Pandemic Prevention together with colleagues in Ghana. In cooperation with the Ministry of Health and the National Health Insurance Scheme in Ghana, he is committed to expanding health insurance coverage.

"The Africa focus at the University of Bayreuth fits in very well with my previous research and was therefore one of the reasons why I chose the University of Bayreuth," says Quentin. "The still young medical campus and the excellent reputation of Bayreuth's health economics department are further reasons that spoke in favour of Bayreuth." Prof Dr Wilm Quentin now wants to bring these three points together in his new professorship for Planetary & Public Health.