EU health programme - 2010 call for proposals : abstracts of the actions selected for EU co-funding

Ensuring a high level of health for its citizens is one of the concerns and ambitions of the European Union, and it is active in many ways in pursuit of this objective. An important aspect of what the EU does in this field is the co-funding of public health activities across Europe and this brochure provides a comprehensive overview of the most recent actions having received EU financial support. These actions have all been co-funded in the framework of the second Programme of Community action in the field of public health, more commonly referred to as the EU health programme. With a budget of 321.5 million euro for 2008-2013, the programme touches on a wide range of actions: from discouraging the use of tobacco or abuse of alcohol to refining the care of patients with Alzheimer's Disease; from suicide prevention to investigating congenital anomalies; and from averting personal injuries to strengthening Europe's defenses against epidemics. It aims to overcome inequalities across Europe, whether they concern our lifestyles, such as in access to opportunities for physical activity, or lifesaving interventions, such as quality transplantation systems. It promotes the generation and dissemination of knowledge on innovative treatments and care, whether for rare diseases, or on widespread health challenges such as cardiovascular disease or cancer. It supports the awareness of the rights of patients; it assists in finding responses to specific health issues such as HIV or in easing the lives of people with multiple sclerosis. The programme operates through annual work plans adopted by the European Commission, which set out the specific priorities and allocate the program's resources accordingly for each year of the program. The implementation of each annual work plan is done through the publication of four calls for proposals, each one of which is targeted to fund specific type of public health actions: projects, conferences, joint actions between the European Commission and the EU member states and operating grants. The actions highlighted here were selected from those proposals, and most are ongoing at the time of publication. Indicatively, approximately 30 million euros were made available under the 2010 calls for proposals. To receive EU co-funding under this programme, actions have to contribute to at least one of the three main objectives of the programme: to improve citizens' health security; • to promote health, including the reduction of health inequalities; • to generate and disseminate health information and knowledge. • They also need to have a European dimension, meaning that partners from a range of European countries have to be involved.