Eurocare Participates in the 2024 European Public Health Week

 Eurocare actively participated in the 2024 European Public Health Week, an initiative organized by the European Public Health Association (EUPHA). This year's theme, "Health is a political choice!", underscored the significant influence of political decisions on public health, something particularly important in the field of alcohol policy.

As part of the week's events, Eurocare's Secretary General, Florence Berteletti, alongside Samuelle Tonello, Research Coordinator at EuroHealthNet, hosted a webinar focusing on the Commercial Determinants of Health. The session explored how health-harming industries utilize marketing and manipulation to drive consumption of their products. The webinar featured real-life examples, like how the tobacco and alcohol industries market their products to women under the guise of liberation and feminism; or how the Italian food industry successfully popularized certain products, such as pizza, which were not traditionally as widespread in Italy. The speakers also reminded the audience that corporations are accountable to their shareholders and are driven by profit making (profit made by selling health-harming products), which is why they shouldn’t be seen as partners in public health policy making. The webinar had over 80 participants and concluded with an engaging Q&A session.

Eurocare staff also participated in several workshops during the week. Anamaria Suciu, Advocacy and Project Coordinator, attended the "Radical Community Management Training" workshop focused on best practices in community engagement  and effective online communications strategies. Benjamin Ball shared valuable lessons around using our personal voice to create a collective legitimate discourse which can become mainstream first in our bubble and then progressively spread to wider circles.

Radical Community Management Training

Our Communications Officer, Javiera Munoz, participated in the workshop, "Next Generation: Public Health of Today and Tomorrow," during which young public health professionals discussed the future of the public health field and the role of communication, especially in light of the 2024 EU elections. A major challenge identified was convincing policymakers to prioritize prevention-focused public health measures, which are harder to promote compared to medicines and treatments that have more tangible outcomes in terms of lives saved.

Workshop “Next Generation: Public Health of Today and Tomorrow”