Johan von Schreeb

Johan von Schreeb

Professor
Telephone: +46852482831
Visiting address: Widerströmska huset, Tomtebodavägen 18 A, Plan 4, 17177 Stockholm
Postal address: K9 Global folkhälsa, K9 GPH von Schreeb, 171 77 Stockholm
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About me

  • Professor of Global Disaster Medicine at the Department of Global Public Health.

    I am the director for the Centre for Health Crises and research group leader for the group Global Disaster Medicine - Health Needs and Response. The group is a WHO collaborative centre that provides training in global disaster medicine and trauma care in austere settings, conducts research and supports policy work within the field. We were part of setting up the WHO-led Emergency Medical Teams (EMT) initiative and have co-authored key documents within the initiative.
    I am a medical doctor specialised in general surgery an. I did my first field mission in 1989 with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), and have since continued to work with MSF and other organisations in disasters world wide. Immediately following the earthquake in Turkey in February 2023, I assisted in the coordination of international medical assistance on site, via a collaboration between the Centre for Health Crises and the frontline medical aid organisation UK-Med. In March and April 2022 I was seconded to the WHO in Ukraine to serve as coordinator for international EMTs. In August 2020 I was deployed as EMT coordinator to Lebanon for 5 months following the Beirut blast and explosion of COVID-19 cases. I continued to support WHO in Lebanon in 2021 and conducted training on mass casualty management in Iraq. I also served as EMT coordinator during the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone 2014. In 2016-17, I gave trauma care support in Mosul and in 2017 conducted training in trauma care in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine and in 2018 conducted similar training in Yemen, all for the WHO. 

    During the COVID-19 pandemic I served as an advisor on disaster medicine to the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare as well as to Stockholm County Council.

    I am the co-founder of the Swedish section of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and served as its president for seven years and have been board member of MSF Belgium and Hong Kong.

    Based on my field experience as a front line surgeon I published the book “Katastrofdoktorn” Brombergs förlag, 2015. I regularly appear as a disaster medicine expert in radio and television. I also spend lots of time working with the artist-run gallery Candyland, that I am part of.

    Education
    Professor, MD, PhD, Specialist in general surgery

    Academic honours, awards and prizes
    Awarded Swede of the year 2014 by the news magazine Fokus
    Awardes the Prins Carl medal by the Swedish King in 2014 for outstanding humanitarian work

Research

  • My research aims at providing scientific evidence to support improvements in assisting people and populations affected by disasters worldwide. Moreover, my research explores how health needs and risks vary depending on type of disaster and context. My research group also explores type and level of trauma care needed in resource scarce settings and assess predictions models for early trauma mortality. We also assess health system resilience to disasters. Please see the publication list for more information.

Teaching

  • Global Disaster Medicine - Health Needs and Response runs several courses that focuses on managing significant number of disaster affected including management of injuries. The courses cover both clinical and public aspects of disasters using limited resources. Together with Anneli Eriksson I have developed several courses at our department.

    We run a two year Erasmus Mundus course called Public Health in Disasters, that is conducted in partnership with two other European universities. Our 20 ECT course Public Health Response in Disasters is offered as a free standing course. Every semester we offer a two week elective course (SVK) in disaster medicine for medical students. Moreover, we offer a 9-week humanitarian health assistance course for volunteers deploying with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). We also offer specific trainings in disaster medicine for Swedish doctors undergoing specialisation.

    Through KI Education our group also commissions courses and accepts assignments. In 2020 we developed online courses in hygiene procedures for health care staff working with COVID-19. During the pandemic, more than 160 000 people completed these courses. We also run trainings in mass casualty management and have developed the simulations tools ViTrieEX (Virtual Triage Exercise) and AnTriEx (Analouge triage exercise). We have conducted simulation trainings in Iraq, Yemen, Cambodia, Lebanon, Ukraine and Moldova. The tools are available free of charge.

    Moreover, I frequently teach on other courses and in public lectures. Since 2020 I am a member of the Pedagogical Academy at Karolinska Institutet.

Articles

All other publications

Grants

  • Swedish Research Council for Health Working Life and Welfare
    1 January 2023 - 31 December 2026
    Research problem and specific questions: Sweden’s emergency preparedness has met several acute challenges in the past years, now in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has shocked the society, including the Swedish health system. There remains little empirical evidence on how health systems can remain resilient when exposed to shocks, but tested and trained emergency preparedness plans appear to be crucial elements. To be prepared for future shocks it is essential to systematically compile, assess and analyze to what extent emergency preparedness plans were adequate and have been implemented during the pandemic. The purpose of this project is therefore to assess the implementation and effectiveness of regional emergency preparedness plans in Sweden during COVID-19, so that Sweden will learn from the pandemic to build resilience of the Swedish health system for future shocks.Data and methods: The project is based on four individual studies that all apply different, well established research methods to study the Swedish emergency preparedness during the pandemic. Qualitative methods (interviews, Delphi panel) and systems thinking methods (Group Model Building) will be used to capture experiences from key stakeholders of the regional emergency preparedness plans and management of the pandemic. In addition, quantitative methods will be used to assess potential differences between the regional preparedness plans and how they may have affected provision of health care.Plan for project realization: The main applicant will lead the project together with one of the co-applicants. A doctoral student will be recruited for the project to further develop the research plan and perform most of the project work. Due to the nature of the proposed project, the budget costs in this application are mainly salary costs. The research group recently received funding from Karolinska Institutet, a doctoral training grant, in October 2021 for this project.Relevance: To develop emergency preparedness within the Swedish health system is key to be able to meet future health shocks, mitigate their effects and for recovery after the emergency has passed. This project aims to generate new knowledge on emergency preparedness from lessons learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic and thereby support decision makers to develop more resilient health systems for the future.
  • Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation
    1 January 2022 - 31 December 2027
    Armed conflict is human development in reverse. The full extent of the problem remains unknown, however, and fragmentation of research into multiple academic fields limits our understanding. This multi-disciplinary program brings together scholars from economics, epidemiology, political science, and conflict research to study the effects of armed conflict in much more detail and comprehensiveness than earlier studies. It takes a risk-analysis perspective, seeing the expected impact as a function of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability, and consider effects at both the macro and micro level, on economies, health, water security, political institutions, human rights, forced migration, and gender equality. Hazard will be modeled through an early-warning system, expanding the well-established ViEWS system, to alert observers to particularly detrimental occurrences of violence. We will model exposure to conflict events by accounting for how effects of violence are transmitted to locations far from the violence itself and over time. We will also identify conditions that make local populations and institutions particularly vulnerable to the effects, and how conflict increases local populations' vulnerability to other shocks such as natural disasters. Throughout, the program will study how the various impacts and vulnerabilities identified work to reinforce each other, and formulate policy recommendations for parties seeking to reduce the impact of armed conflict on human development.
  • Swedish Research Council
    1 January 2017 - 31 December 2019
  • Central Norway Regional Health Authority
    1 January 2012 - 31 December 2017

Employments

  • Professor, Global Disaster Medicine, Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, 2019-

Degrees and Education

  • Doctor Of Philosophy, Karolinska Institutet, 2007

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