The European Network for Prevention and Health Promotion in Family Medicine and General Practice (EUROPREV) had its annual meeting 19–20 March 2010 in Barcelona to discuss specific issues of the network. For the first time, the final results of the ‘EUROPREVIEW Patient Study’ were presented. Data from 7947 patients 30-70 years old attending primary care centres from 22 countries across Europe have been collected. As a brief summary of the results regarding lifestyle, 26% of our patients were smokers, 7.6% of the patients were risky drinkers, 19% of the patients felt that their eating habits were unhealthy and 15% of the patients never exercised. Looking at the results of screenings for cancer in women, 53% of the women thought that cervical smear test and mammogram had to be done yearly and 42% of the women more often, respectively.
We have to explore now the answers given by patients regarding the importance of healthy habits, what their needs are, if they plan to change, and if they are confident they can change. Differences among countries will be also analysed.
These results will be extensively presented at the WONCA Europe Conference in Malaga, 6–9 October 2010.
At the next WONCA Conference, EUROPREV will organize a workshop on ‘Preventing Unnecessary Prevention’, highlighting tools for empowering physicians and patients to choose appropriate screenings and diagnostic tests. It is expected that delegates from Italy, Spain, Norway, Portugal, Croatia and Slovenia will participate as speakers.
In the past, EUROPREV published two guides on counselling health activities. The first one was on Healthy Diets and the second on physical activities. The idea is to translate and disseminate theses guides throughout national colleges in Europe. In March 2010 we have received the Slovenian version of the physical activity guide ‘Telesna Dejavnost Za Zdravje’ coordinated by Dr Mateja Bulc.
EUROPREV is a member of the ‘European Union Platform: Diet, Physical Activity and Health’ (see http://ec.europa.eu/health/ph_determinants/life_style/nutrition/platform/platform_en.htm for details) since July 2007. The purpose of this EU platform is to provide a common forum for all interested actors at European level where they can explain their plans to contribute concretely to the pursuit of healthy nutrition, physical activity and the fight against obesity, and where outcomes and experiences can be reported and reviewed, so that over time better evidence is assembled of what works and best practice can be more clearly defined. Yearly actions need to be presented to the Platform. EUROPREV submitted its platform commitment last January 2010, focused on the results of the EUROPREVIEW patient study. On behalf of EUROPREV Dr Mateja Bulc attended the high level group meeting of the platform, held in Brussels, 11 February 2010. Different Platform commitments were presented and discussed. Two organizations showed interest in collaborating with EUROPREV: the European non-governmental sports organization with the 2-min active basic exercise stretching programme and also the Danish Heart Foundation with the testing aerobic fitness in Danish school programme.