Prof. dr. Marie-Louise Dierks

Professor Dr. rer. biol. hum. Marie-Luise Dierks, Dipl.-Paed., is an educational scientist and has been researching and teaching at the Institute for Epidemiology, Social Medicine and Health System Research at the Hannover Medical School (MHH) since 1989. She is responsible for the management of the task force “Patient Orientation and Health Education”. Regarding the topic “Patient Orientation” she has not only written her PhD thesis "Women and early cancer detection" at the MHH, but also her postdoctoral thesis "Empowerment and the users of the German health care system".

Her research focuses on care research and user orientation in the health care system. She has developed a model for targeting women for preventive activities, elaborated instruments for recording patient satisfaction with regards to quality and quantity and has detailed experience in the user-oriented preparation of evidence-based health information by using various media. In addition, she has designed and disseminated evaluation instruments for laymen to ensure the quality of health information, as well as procedures for using layman competence in the development and evaluation of health information.

Current research projects relate to topics of digitization and technical support in in-patient care, the promotion of self-management of people with chronic diseases and the theoretical and practical further development of concepts for the promotion of health expertise. As an innovative practical project, she founded the first German patient university in 2006 together with Prof. Schwartz, which is still successfully established at the MHH today. Educational events are offered here for all interested citizens of the region and these are now also available nationwide on the Internet.

From 2016 – 2019, Prof. Dierks was a member of the expert advisory board of the Federal Government for the Innovation Fund in the Health Care System.