Annual Report 2019
“Each of us has a story but we all share common challenges. Show you care about patients: ShowLeadership”

Only in Europe, more than 200 million people live with allergy and airways diseases such as asthma and COPD. While each of us experience different severity, care and lives, there are many issues that affect us all, and for which we are 43 organisations reunited in EFA. In 2019, an election year for the European Union institutions, we launched #ShowLeadership, an evidence-based advocacy campaign to encourage stakeholders to join our vision for change for people with allergy and airways diseases in Europe.

A platform for evidence-based advocacy

#ShowLeadership was conceived as an information campaign to pitch the latest patient evidence to policy-makers and partners. Through the campaign, we brought together all our patient reported outcomes on asthma and COPD (the 2019 Active Patients ACCESS Care report), food allergy (the Quality of Life for people with food allergies in Europe: A menu for improvement report) and atopic eczema (the 2018 Itching for Life: Quality of Life and costs for people living with severe atopic eczema in Europe report) and asked for our rights.

Seeking high-level champions during key events

EFA kicked off #ShowLeadership in the last event of the European Parliament Interest Group for the legislative term 2014-2019, and in connection with EFA’s 2019 Annual General Meeting.

Through monthly highlights, EFA #ShowLeadership rolled-out brand new data claiming change, in connection with key international events:

  • The right for allergy and airways diseases in all policies (April), linking to World Health Day,
  • leadership for highlighting risk factors that we face in everyday life like tobacco (May), environment and ecosystems;
  • leadership to implement WHO air quality targets (June),
  • poorly enabled self-management need for leadership for digital tools (July),
  • leadership to eradicate health inequalities in socio-economic factors that prevent access and prevention (August),
  • access to appropriate and innovative treatments (September),
  • the right to health and care through accurate diagnosis, treatment and patient care pathway (October),
  • patient involvement by including patients and integrating their perspectives at all decision-making levels (November) and finally
  • patient safety through scaling up best practices on accurate information (December).

Mobilising patients at national level

Our Members were involved in mobilising their constituencies thanks to extensive campaign toolkits. They met 10 Members of the European Parliament and embedded some the campaign monthly highlights into their communications. They also took the lead to stand for their communities and recorded 22 video statements in their national languages emphasising how requests for policy change go beyond geographical borders and that similar challenges exist across Europe.

Together, we published several media articles and 70 #ShowLeadership tweets that got an organic +30,000 social media reach.

#ShowLeadership following EFA Roadmap for 2020 and beyond

#ShowLeadership is not a one year platform but a motivational rights-based campaign. It has paved the way towards EFA Roadmap on Inform, Prevent and Care, the advocacy masterpiece condensing our mobilisation for change. Presented in November at a European Parliament event in Strasbourg hosted by Aldo Patriciello (EPP/ITA), the resulting EFA Roadmap will guide our way for 2020 and beyond, together and strong.