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Background: In Germany, a great amount of money is spent annually on health research (HR). However, detailed quantitative data concerning funders and receivers of the financing is lacking., Objective: The goal of this paper is to depict the scope to which funders finance HR and the amount of money research institutions receive for their research activities., Materials and Methods: First, openly accessible sources were searched to identify the relevant data for 2013. Missing data was requested from the specific institutions. Where relevant data could not be identified, approximate results were determined or marked as missing., Results: In 2013, approximately 10.14 billion EUR were spent on HR. The most important funders were business (58%) and public agencies (36%). Business mainly funded privately financed research institutions, while public agencies mainly funded universities and non-university research institutions. Overall, privately financed research institutions received 55% of the research money, universities 34%, non-university research institutions 9%, and 2% of the money went to federal institutions., Conclusion: In Germany, the biggest share of health research money is spent and consumed by the private sector. The pattern of financing health research in Germany is comparable to other countries where data are available.

Background: It has been proposed that the declining stroke mortality trends will stop due to high and increasing levels of stroke risk factors. Accordingly, it has been reported that the declining mortality from coronary heart diseases, whose aetiology is comparable to that of stroke, has already started to level off in major population groups in western countries. However, there are no recent data on the development and possible change in stroke mortality trends., Aim: The objective of this study was to investigate overall as well as age- and sex-specific stroke mortality trends between 1980 and 2009 in Germany and to identify changes in these trends., Methods: Data of the German Federal Statistical Office were used to calculate age-standardized and age-specific mortality trends for women and men between 1980 and 2009. Joinpoint software was used to calculate annual percentage changes and detect changes in the direction of mortality trends. Additionally, sensitivity analyses were conducted separately for West Germany and East Germany to analyse the stroke mortality trends in the two parts of Germany. Trends of ischaemic and haemorrhagic stroke were analysed separately., Results: Between 1980 and 2009, the overall stroke mortality has decreased by 68.4% in women and 70.6% in men. The decrease was relatively constant throughout the whole period and trends were comparable across age groups and sexes. The overall percent decline was less pronounced in the younger age groups compared with the older ones. Additionally, the analyses showed that between 1990 and 1991, following the reunification of Germany, the stroke mortality in Germany as a whole increased in most of the population subgroups. After 2000, a flattening in the mortality trends could be detected in the age-standardized mortality of women as well as in the subgroups of women aged ≥55 and men aged 65-84., Conclusion: Between 1980 and 2009, stroke mortality decreased substantially in the entire population. The increase in stroke mortality after the reunification was possibly caused by changes in the coding practice in former East Germany. During the whole period, a flattening of the decrease was observed in some population subgroups, which may be the result of relatively high levels of important risk factors. The decreasing stroke mortality rate may flatten in the entire population in the future. The results may aid in designing and improving preventive strategies., (Copyright © 2012 S. Karger AG, Basel.)