JA PreventNCD at the 17th European Public Health Conference 2024
On 13-15 November 2024, the 17th European Public Health Conference (EPH) is taking place in Lisbon, Portugal. The main theme of this year’s conference is “Sailing the waves of European public health: exploring a sea of innovation.” At the conference, public health professionals seek to discover new approaches, push boundaries and chart the course for the future of public health in Europe.
At this year’s conference, the JA PreventNCD project will have an active role in contributing with perspectives on strengthening prevention systems for non-communicable diseases (NCDs), presenting collaborative approaches and showcasing innovative strategies. Through scientific discussions and workshops, the JA PreventNCD will share evidence-based solutions aimed at reducing the burden of NCDs and improving public health outcomes across the continent.
The JA PreventNCD Scientific Sessions
Wednesday 13th November 15:15 – 15:40 CET
JA PreventNCD (WP7) is co-organizing with WHO EURO, EUPHA-HL and M-POHL the workshop “Health literacy in Europe: Building a comparative database for shaping public health policy”
The workshop is set to offer a deep dive into the M-POHL Health Literacy Survey (2024-2026; HLS24), the most comprehensive Health Literacy Survey in Europe, as well as the health literacy tools utilized in the process. It will be composed of four presentations: one focusing on the M-POHL HLS24 project overview and collaboration with JA PreventNCD, and three others detailing the specific health literacy tools used to evaluate various facets of health literacy within the general European population such as HLS24-DIGI for digital health literacy, HLS24-COM-P for communicative health literacy, and HLS24-NAV for navigational health literacy.
Chairpersons: Robert Griebler (Austria), Christopher Le (Norway)
Presenters: Hanne Søberg Finbråten (Norway), Diane Levin-Zamir (Israel), Lennert Griese (Germany)
Wednesday 13th November 15:15 – 16:15
JA PreventNCD (WP5) will in collaboration with WHO EURO and EUPHA organize the scientific session Making WHO European Region the Healthiest Online Environment for children: Restrict harmful marketing.
This 60-minute scientific session will introduce the WHO KidAd app, a pioneering tool developed to address these modern challenges by providing an objective product to monitor various marketing materials. The session will showcase the collaborative efforts of the JA PreventNCD and the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe), highlighting the specific goals set by JA Work Package 5 and its partnership with WHO. The session will end with the identification of evidence-based behavioral strategies such as nudges, choice architecture, and social norms that can influence healthier choices, thereby reducing the impact of harmful marketing.
Chairpersons: Kremlin Wickramasinghe (Denmark), Amandine Garde (EUPHA-LAW)
Presenters: Olga Zhiteneva (Denmark), Maria Joao Gregorio (Porugal), Iveta Nagyova (EUPHA), Amandine Garde (EUPHA-LAW)
Thursday 14th November 15:15-16.15 CET
The scientific coordinator of JA PreventNCD (WP1) will organize a Roundtable together with JACARDI on Primary prevention and management of NCDs – the added value of joint actions across Europe.
The Coordinator of JACARDI, Benedetta Armocida, will discuss efforts to scale up initiatives addressing cardiovascular diseases and diabetes in Europe, while the Scientific Coordinator of JA PreventNCD, Knut-Inge Klepp, will outline their efforts in prioritizing effective prevention strategies and policies to reduce the burden of cancer and NCDs. JA PreventNCD emphasizes primary prevention and policy, whereas JACARDI concentrates on secondary prevention and health systems strengthening. Both Joint Actions rely on collaboration among Member States to scale up best practices, aiming to generate policy-relevant evidence with a focus on equity, diversity, scalability, and sustainability, while avoiding fragmentation and duplication.
This Roundtable will explore expected outcomes of these Joint Actions and important criteria for success, hoping to shed light on both opportunities for added value and challenges inherent in such large-scale projects.
Chairpersons: Graziano Onder (Italy), Hanna Tolonen (EUPHA-PHMR)
Presenters: Benedetta Armocida (Italy), Knut-Inge Klepp (Norway), Claudia Habl (Austria), Arnfinn Helleve (Norway)
Thursday 14th November 15:15 – 16:15 CET
The workshop Skills building seminar: Beyond the jargon: an interactive workshop for effective risk communication is organized by JA PreventNCD (Sciensano) EUPHAnct and EUPHA-EPI.
The JA PreventNCD work package 10 will contribute by presenting the ongoing activities and preliminary results from task 10.3, titled “Lessons learned from Covid: Effective health communication in crises and beyond”. The main objective of the task is to develop a framework for informed, need-based communication strategies that draw on lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of health communication.
The session will start by presenting core elements of effective risk communication, based on the WHO Strategic Communications Framework for effective communications. These elements were used in a qualitative analysis for Task 10.3, addressing how supranational and governmental health organizations communicate with vulnerable groups. During the workshop, participants will be divided into groups and tasked to translate an epidemiological report into a clear, concise message that can effectively communicate the key points to the public.
Chairpersons: Jinane Ghattas (EUPHAnxt), Angelo Maria Pezzullo (EUPHA-EPI)
Presenters: Stefan Schaub (BzgA, Germany), Federica Rossetti (Sciensano, Belgium) and Stefan Adrian Voinea (WHO, Denmark)