EU programme focuses on health promotion and raising awareness

Date: 27/06/1996

By Rory Watson

THE EU has to tread carefully when it enters the sensitive world of public health, but it has a respectable 35-million-ecu budget to help ease its path over the next five years.

Unlike specific funds which have been allocated for the fight against individual diseases such as cancer and AIDS, the money will be used to finance general health promotion and information campaigns in the Union up to the year 2000.

The pioneering five-year programme has taken two years to work its way through the Union's legislative maze and was only finally approved in mid-April after budgetary-conscious governments agreed to the funding levels demanded by the Commission and MEPs.

The emphasis will be placed on exchanging information between member states, supporting innovative schemes and encouraging the wider use of examples of best practice as officials select eligible projects in the months ahead.

The Union is prepared to finance comparative studies into different national health policies, support the creation of transnational networks and promote the exchange of health professionals as part of efforts to broaden the content of training programmes.

Education is being targeted at well-defined groups such as adolescents and workers, with special emphasis given to promoting an understanding of health issues in schools.

Specific health promotion projects will focus on the problems faced by disadvantaged groups in society, analyse the impact of diet and lifestyle, highlight the dangers of alcohol abuse and consider new ways of preventing cardio-vascular illnesses.

Programmes to help the elderly this year will revolve around the Ageing Well network, promote guidelines for handling osteoporosis and possibly include the creation of a high-level group of experts to advise on health promotion for the elderly.

These projects are in addition to the 5 million ecu voted by the European Parliament this year for action to tackle the growing problem of Alzheimer's disease, which is expected to affect eight million people by the year 2000.

The 35-million-ecu health promotion and information programme involves cooperation with the World Health Organisation, the United Nations and the Council of Europe, and allows schemes to be extended to take in applicant countries in Central and Eastern Europe as well as Malta and Cyprus.

The five-year information campaign is not the only vehicle the Union has to promote greater health awareness among the public. It also has access to Community financing to run programmes drawing attention to the dangers of smoking.

Paid for by a levy on tobacco producers, the fund is currently financing 11 projects to the tune of 5.5 million ecu and is likely to have a further 9 million ecu to support the second series of projects.

The current crop of schemes was selected from the 66 tabled and covers a wide range of initiatives to discourage people from smoking.

The most ambitious, coordinated by the University of Maastricht, is developing a comprehensive European smoking prevention approach for adolescents. Another is organising Smokebuster Clubs for young people in France and Belgium and a third, being run in Germany, is concentrating on developing smoking prevention courses for nurses in training colleges.