EFA President Mikaela Odemyr addressed a distinguished audience on the topics for allergy and asthma patients, namely prevention, care, participation and research for cure.
On the prevention side, Mikaela pointed out that there is a confusion between consumer choice and allergy patient needs, and it is health requirements that should lead food research, as the progress in prevention of allergy and asthma is still patched. Worrisome, there is no prevention available nor there is coordinated preventative advice for patients and families, which adds an extra pressure on families. She also highlighted the food labelling blockage to advice patients based on the latest scientific findings on food allergen thresholds.
On the care side, Mikaela highlighted the great trends towards patient centered integrated care, precision medicine, and digital health. She flagged the optimist horizons that new targeted treatments for severe asthma and allergy bring to patients. However, she also noted that cost or limited access might reduce the benefits to the patients.
Looking at patient involvement, Mikaela valued that the current setting recognises and seeks for the patients’ voice, which opens new avenues for self-management. Some trends include patient involvement in health research, as co-researchers or for example advisers, big data, sharing and privacy. However, there are great disparities in patient involvement in research and resourcing it.
The meeting was a great opportunity to share with other leaders, and to share views on three key topics: drug development and biomedical engineering, allergic diseases and asthma in the context of population an environmental health, and mHealth. EFA and EAACI are strategic partners to devise better prevention and care for people living with allergy and asthma and we are delighted to have this collaboration with the leading medical society on allergology.