The 2018 Work Programme sets out that the priority in the area of promotion of good health, prevention of non-communicable diseases is on transferring and/or scaling up existing good and best practices. In this context, the SGPP (Steering Group on Health Promotion, Disease Prevention and Management of Non-Communicable Diseases) has selected the Italian cardiovascular screening program “CARDIO 50” as a best practice that must be transferred from the “owner” to other Member States (MSs) countries participating in the 3rd Health Programme. Objectives of the CARDIO 50 program were to estimate cardiovascular risk among the 50 years old population, identify persons with inadequate life-styles, new cases of hypertension, hyperglycemia and hyper cholesterolemia, activate an integrated model of assistance to help modify or reduce risk factors among healthy subjects, promote interventions to change unhealthy lifestyles and to increase knowledge and perceptions of CVD risks among the general population. The transfer of this best practice has to be done ensuring maximum sustainability and applicability to large sections of the population; the Italian project is in this sense a starting point and will be further improved and perfected in order to guarantee the best results.
Specifically, in Luxembourg, Cardio 50 will be carried out in the whole country.
In Romania YOUNG50 will be implemented in three counties from the North-West part of Romania. The project will facilitate the targeting of several groups of population, in order to increase their chance for a healthy lifestyle, prevent disease, and decrease the gap in terms of health status and quality of life between different regions of Europe.
In Lithuania YOUNG50 will cover the local areas of Vilnius municipality and its suburbs. According to the latest WHO data published in 2017 Coronary Heart Disease Deaths in Lithuania reached 42.57% of total deaths. Although the number of smoking adults has dropped, due to tighter tobacco control policies, more than one in three men still smoke every day. Lithuania has high level of alcohol consumption (50% higher than the EU average) and obesity is increasing.
In Italy YOUNG50 will continue the ongoing activities of CARDIO 50 inviting to screening the 50 years old population in at least 2 Local Health Authorities of the Veneto region and perform a follow up study on a sample of the previous population invited since 2016.
All activities are aimed at the target population, in order to eliminate or minimize the occurrence of cardiovascular diseases and their consequent impact on people’s lives.
This project was funded by the European Union’s Health Programme (2014-2020).
