Health inequities in the European Region

Reblogged from Science on the Net

Europe is on track to achieve the Health 2020 target to reduce premature mortality from cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes mellitus and chronic respiratory diseases by 1.5 percent annually until 2020. However, there are other challenges for the European Region, like those concerning health inequalities among countries.

Recently, WHO presented the Health Report 2015, published every three years, which aims to collect data from all the WHO databases concerning the main health topics. This edition has two goals: reporting on progress towards the Health 2020 targets in the Region so far, for instance on premature mortality linked to risk factors, life expectancy or the health coverage, and highlighting new frontiers in health information. Data are mainly taken from Health for All database, the Global Status of NCDs 2014 and the EU detailed Mortality database.

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30 anni di vaccini, ecco come ci hanno salvato la vita

Reblogged from WIRED Italia

Il vaccino è servito. Come ha mostrato in maniera graficamente evidente il Wall Street Journal proprio qualche giorno fa, la diffusione dei vaccini negli Stati Uniti è stata decisiva per l’abbattimento di numerose malattie, specie infantili, a partire dagli anni Trenta fino a oggi.

Wired ha provato a prendere spunto dal noto giornale americano per raccontare l’impatto dei vaccini nel nostro vecchio continente, durante gli ultimi trent’anni, e una cosa è certa: i casi di morbillo, parotite, rosolia, pertosse, epatite A e B si sono quasi azzerati nella maggior parte degli stati europei. Per non parlare di malattie come la polio o la difterite, il cui impatto era già stato fermato in modo decisivo nei decenni precedenti. Certo, non in tutti i paesi si può dire di aver vinto, ma i grafici qui proposti mostrano molto chiaramente un abbattimento dei casi delle principali malattie infettive infantili, in particolare a partire dai primi anni 2000.

I dati sono quelli forniti dall’Organizzazione Mondiale della Sanità(OMS) attraverso il database CISID, che permette di filtrare i dati che si desidera consultare per anno e per malattia. Noi abbiamo deciso di considerare qui i casi per 100 mila abitanti, in modo da fornire un termine di paragone più efficace fra i diversi stati europei.

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Horizon 2020 and Climate: which Work Program for Europe

Reblogged from Science on the Net

Waste. Water. Green Economy. Those are the main focuses of the recent Horizon 2020 Work Programmethat has been adopted on December 10th 2013 and definitively updated last July 22nd with the parts that relate to 2015. Within this Work Programme, Europe has set its objectives concerning climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials. The estimated total budget including horizontal activities will be about 348 million of euro for 2014 and 377 million for the following year. The aim is to fill the gaps in the knowledge base necessary to understand changes in the environment, policies and methods.

Based on current trends, the equivalent of more than two planet Earths will be needed by 2050 to support the growing global population. It is evident that it implies a better use of our resources in order to decouple our economic growth. The project provides three calls, concerning the three main focuses – waste, water, green economy – and each call contemplates many other smaller calls concerning these three specific areas. Let us see more in detail.

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