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Dr. rer. med. Erand Llanaj

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Curriculum Vitae

Current position

  • Scientist (academic co-worker), Medical Faculty OWL, Bielefeld University (since 2026)
  • Field of work: Translational epidemiology and real-world evidence in primary care (health services research)
  • Focus areas: Multimorbidity, polypharmacy, medication safety, prevention of clinically relevant adverse drug events (ADE)

Professional experience

  • Senior Scientific Collaborator, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Global Burden of Disease Study (since 2020)
  • Principal Investigator, READ Albania: National Youth Cardiometabolic Surveillance Platform (2024 to 2025)
  • Postdoctoral Researcher, German Institute of Human Nutrition (DIfE) / German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD) (2022 to 2024)
  • Further stations: Public health research and teaching in Europe and experience in global health policy (WHO)

Profile'

  • Interface between routine care, data analysis and implementation in practice
  • Translates complex evidence into actionable and testable clinical strategies (risk stratification, monitoring logic, targeting)
  • Focus on interpretability (calibration, transferability) instead of pure performance thinking

Core competences

  • Health services research and real-world evidence (routine data) in primary care
  • Risk prediction and validation (calibration, transportability, clinical usability)
  • Multimorbidity and polypharmacy, medication safety, ADE prevention
  • Pragmatic evaluation and implementation logic
  • Systematic reviews, meta-analyses, meta-research

Education

  • PhD, Medical Sciences (Molecular Epidemiology), University of Debrecen
  • MSc, Bioscience Engineering (Human Nutrition), Ghent University
  • MSc, Public Health (Epidemiology major), University of Medicine, Tirana
  • BSc, Public Health and Preventive Medicine, University of Tirana
  • Visiting Scholar, Global Health Policy, George Washington University

Methods and Software

  • R, SAS, Stata, SPSS
  • Prediction modelling, validation and calibration, routine data analytics
  • Reproducible analyses and publication-ready visualisation

Publication profile (short)

Languages

  • Albanian (mother tongue)
  • English (business fluent)
  • German (confident in appointments)

Current research topics

  • Translational epidemiology in primary care: decision-ready risk stratification and targeted interventions
  • Multimorbidity and polypharmacy: clinically relevant risk profiles, monitoring logic and avoidable harms
  • Medication safety and adverse drug events (ADEs): prevention approaches and actionable signals in routine data
  • Cardiometabolic prevention: early detection of risk and pragmatic implementation pathways in care
  • Real-world evidence methodology: calibration, transferability and clinically interpretable models under routine data conditions
  • Evidence synthesis and meta-research to strengthen the reliability, transparency and feasibility of prevention-relevant evidence

Memberships and Functions

Memberships

  • Senior Scientific Collaborator, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), Global Burden of Disease Study

Functions'

  • Academic co-worker, Medical Faculty OWL, Bielefeld University, General and Family Medicine / Translational and Health Services Research
  • Former Principal Investigator, READ Albania: National Cardiometabolic Surveillance System in Adolescents