In the last two decades, obesity has become one of the biggest public health challenges, and according to the World Health Organization, in the absence of drastic prevention and treatment measures, in 2025 over 50% of the world’s population will be obese. In addition to the existence of physical disabilities and psychological disorders, being overweight significantly increases a person’s risk of developing diabetes. Within a joint Romanian-Ukrainian effort, the “Stefan cel Mare” University, Suceava together with the “Vasyl Stefanyk” National Precarpathic University of Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine is carrying out a cross-border project aimed at educating health providers and the general population about the risk factors associated with obesity and diabetes, nutritional counseling by promoting healthy eating habits and a more active lifestyle, but also on-site screening and personalized feedback on health.
In the next period, the 2 mobile clinics within the project will be made available to citizens, within public campaigns to identify people with obesity and people prone or diagnosed with diabetes. Within this initiative, adults, young people and also children, will have access to education and nutritional counseling from specialists. The campaigns will take place in 8 localities established within the project: Suceava, Ilișești, Moara and Șcheia – Romania and Burshtyn, Stectseva, Pijlo and Tysmenychany in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine.
The project „Personalized prevention tools in obesity and diabetes – a joint Romanian-Ukrainian programme of health education (PrePOD)”, nb. ENI CBC 2SOFT/4.1/56 started in June 2020 and has a total value of 329,200 euros, representing 1.583.452 lei. This project is funded by the European Union through the Joint Romania-Ukraine Operational Program 2014-2020, the priority “Support for the development of health services and access to health”.
So far, the 2 partners have carried out multiple activities within the project, such as creation of the web page of the project www.prepod.ro, page constantly updated with the progress registered in the development of the activities; establishing contact with local community representatives, administrators and health care providers; conducting a survey on the nutritional expertise of family medical staff in Suceava County and Ivano-Frankivsk region and centralizing and analyzing the results; deepening the knowledge in the field of nutrition, nutritional education and counseling and acquiring the clinical research skills of the project staff and students from the 2 partners; organization of training and nutritional counseling sessions for family health professionals in adopting preventive approaches and effective counseling for patients, patient-patient relationship, recommendations for optimizing a healthy lifestyle and methods to prevent obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Within the implemented activities, the proposed indicators were reached, so that: 120 family medical staff from Suceava County and Ivano-Frankivsk region completed the questionnaire on nutritional expertise prepared by the project implementation team, a number of 151 students and teaching and auxiliary staff from the Department of Health and Human Development, Suceava and the Department of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, Ivano-Frankivsk were trained how to use the project equipment, how to collect and interpret data in a significantly, how to achieve an integrated health report and how to communicate results and preventive measures in an accurate, credible and easy-to-understand manner; 120 participants were trained in the sessions dedicated to medical staff (physicians / nurses) with the theme Nutritional counseling and education organized by the two partner institutions in Suceava and Ivano-Frankivsk.
For more information about the activities carried out and those in progress, visit the project website: www.prepod.ro, contact person: Prof. univ. dr. Mihai COVAȘĂ, Position: Project manager, E-mail: mcovasa@gmail.com.
Last modified: 14 May 2021
