Johanna Callhoff new head of the Health Services Research Group

Dr Johanna Callhoff , has headed the Health Services Research researchg group in the Epidemiology & Health Services Research programme area at the DRFZ since December 2023. With her twelve years of experience in health services research within the group and at the DRFZ, as well as her nationwide recognition for her scientific work, Dr Callhoff is the ideal successor to Prof Dr Angela Zink, who headed the group until 2020.  Special thanks are due to Dr Katinka Albrecht, who was acting head of the group from 2020 to 2023.

“The aim of my research is to improve the care of people with inflammatory rheumatic diseases in Germany. We aim to obtain as up-to-date and accurate a picture as possible of the provision of medication and remedies such as physiotherapy. These statistics help us to assess where care is working well and where there is a need for action,” explains the new research group leader.

The biometrician completed her doctorate at the Charité and was the statistical head of the PROCLAIR project as a postdoc, which involved linking and analysing health insurance billing data with survey data. Since 2019, she has been responsible for managing the German-wide rheumatological core documentation.

This year’s winner of the Wolfgang Schulze Foundation Sponsorship Award, she regularly publishes her findings in layman’s terms for patients, most recently in Apotheken Umschau and in the magazine Mobil of the Deutsche Rheuma-Liga e.V. Dr Callhoff is also known as a successful science slammer.