I am very proud of EFA's achievements in 2022. Together EFA's members and the EFA team re-connected in Iceland, where we took time to reflect upon the impact of the pandemic on our community.
At this meeting, the first since the pandemic, we shared ideas and imagined how we could improve the present and future of all patients living with allergy and airways disease in Europe.
The world evolves and as a result of the pandemic, we now operate in a far more hybrid environment. Our Members identified the opportunities this brings to enable us to offer different ways and channels for patient organisations to support patients with information and create positive impact. EFA is central to advocate for change on behalf and with our Members.
Crucially, we welcomed the EU flagship action on chronic disease, the Healthier Together Initiative of the European Commission, which envisages concrete action on chronic respiratory disease and scopes some attention to the onset of allergy.
Digitalisation frameworks are advancing rapidly across many areas, requiring EFA to develop expertise around issues such as patients’ data sharing and use (as reflected in the EU proposal for a European Health Data Space Regulation), and the digitalisation of safety information (included in the guidelines for food information developed by the Codex Alimentarius Commission).
We continued generating solid patient evidence where we felt the patient perspective was missing, such as through “DIG_IT: The asthma and COPD patients’ digital journey in Europe”.
We also brought all the stakeholders to the table to adopt the “European Consensus Report on the Burden of Atopic Eczema”. Patients all over Europe trusted EFA and shared their intimate experiences, providing every other patient with their moving portraits and testimonials in the photo series “Atopical Lives”. There is nothing more powerful as a way to breakdown barriers to health than patient truth.
EFA is a mirror of the patient movement. As patients are getting more active and more demanding about their care, our federation is growing (45 members in 26 countries), and so is our office (10 staff). Our Capacity Building programme established a mentorship activity between members, providing many opportunities to foster members’ learning and growth. We proudly brought to Brussels the European Allergy and Asthma Youth Parliament, and enjoyed every minute with the youth patient advocates that form it.
Patient centricity is essential in our connections and exchanges and therefore EFA relationships with other authorities and organisations are also growing exponentially. In 2022, EFA joined the EU Health and Emergency Response Authority (HERA) Civil Society Forum and we started partnering with the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).
We give our warmest thanks to EFA members, EFA sustainable corporate partners, the European Commission, our partner organisations and patient experts for your support and commitment to delivering the European allergy and respiratory patient voice in 2022.
We look forward to taking forward the patient dream for change and thank you for your continued support.