Background
The Covid-19 pandemic has taught us how much damage an uninformed citizen who perpetrates unhealthy health-related behaviours can cause and how much, on the other hand, an informed and educated patient can make a difference not only to his or her individual health but to public health in general.
Understanding what the risks for some patients with comorbidities are and what, on the other hand, are the benefits brought by anti-Covid vaccination represent two elements that can mitigate the Covid-19 pandemic and other similar events, which cannot be ruled out to occur again in the future and therefore need to find us more ready and prepared.
Health literacy thus becomes a very powerful tool for individual and public health assurance that allows us to understand that health is a public good to be preserved through individual preventive actions that become even more effective the more we follow them.
As declared by experts: COVID-19 infodemic (an excessive amount of information about a problem that is typically unreliable, spreads rapidly, and makes a solution more difficult to achieve) showed that low health literacy of a population is a globally underestimated public health problem. For example, in Europe, nearly half of adults reported having problems with health literacy and lacking relevant skills to take care of their own health and the health of others.
Project Description
From the above-mentioned needs, the present project was born to valorise interactive and intuitive educational tools.
The project involves a consortium made by:
- IAPO P4PS Observatory (International alliance of patient’s organizations Patients For Patient Safety is a single-point global platform for gathering and analysing patients’ expertise and experience to feed evidence to the national, regional and global policies aimed at improving patient and quality of care for patients by the patients), the project leader;
- IAPO (International alliance of patient’s organizations);
- Cittadinanzattiva APS through its European Active Citizenship Network (ACN);
- Studiorum (center for regional policy research and cooperation and nongovernmental think tank working on the economic and social aspects of EU integration and globalization processes that are of key importance to Macedonia and the countries of Southeast Europe);
- and ALCER (Asociación para la Lucha Contra las Enfermedades del Riñón - Spanish federation of associations fighting kidney disease).
The main objective of the project is to increase the availability of educational and advocacy materials for patients and caregivers, especially for awareness-raising on the importance of proper information leading to understanding and familiarity with risk factors associated with severe COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccination, the importance of timely testing among the general population, and information on available treatment options across different geographic contexts and socio-economic strata in Europe and countries using the languages in which the educational tools and activities will be developed.
To this end, the following activities will be carried out:
- The development of new practical tools and materials to understand the prevention of transmission, the importance of testing, and appropriate treatment;
- The adaptation of existing courses for health professionals to the audience of patients and caregivers and the general public,
- The implementation of interactive webinars translated into the languages of the countries involved in the project. Read more about the first webinar realized: "Knowing and Mitigating the Impact of COVID-19" (EN)
- Read more about the second webinar realized in Italian: “Pazienti fragili, long covid e strategie di prevenzione nel panorama italiano”
The project has a duration of 23 months and started in November 2022.
Learn more about Cittadinanzattiva's engagement against COVID-19 here.
For more information, please feel free to contact
PROJECT LEADER
PARTNERS
SUPPORT
The project has been realized thanks to the unconditional support of Pfizer
Page last updated: November 2022
