Health promotion and disease prevention
Strengthening Disease Prevention and Health Promotion in Europe
Work Package 9 supports the implementation of EU tobacco control legislation and broader NCD prevention efforts. A key focus is the use of the EU Common Entry Gate (EU-CEG) big data to help Member States assess tobacco product contents, design features and identify non-compliant products. To strengthen regulatory capacity, WP9 will establish and support a regional EU sensory panel for evaluating tobacco product flavours. Beyond tobacco, the WP analyses the epidemiology and health impact of at least four major NCD risk factors, synthesising existing surveillance data. It also works to develop a European framework for monitoring tobacco policies and to scale up effective community-based interventions for NCD prevention.
The general mission is to support the implementation of legislative tobacco control frameworks and NCD preventative actions by enhancing EU-level surveillance, strengthening technical capacity for tobacco product assessment, and scaling up best practices for the mitigation of multiple NCD risk factors.
Objectives
- To support tobacco control within the context of the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), the Tobacco Advertising Directive (TAD) and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) across EU MS
- To support the work at the EU level on the surveillance of cancer risk factors and their health impact at the EU MS level
- To facilitate the integration of health promotion and disease prevention within community settings across Europe
- To unlock the potential of the EU-CEG dataset to support EU MS regulatory assessment
- To support regional EU MS capacity for the evaluation of tobacco product flavours
- To perform an assessment of the epidemiology and attributable mortality to at least four NCD risk factors in the EU
- To establish a European framework to evaluate and monitor policy plans targeting tobacco consumption
Actions
Planned activities
- To support EU MS in Tobacco Control through unlocking the potential of the EU-CEG dataset: A dedicated task force analyzes big data from EU-CEG submissions, responds to MS requests, and performs surveillance to identify non-compliant products and assess additive impacts.
- Supporting regional EU MS capacity for the evaluation of tobacco product flavours: This task supports the creation of a regional center in Athens to maintain an operational sensory panel, ensuring updated surveillance information on novel flavored products for EU MS regulation,.
- To perform an assessment of the epidemiology and attributable mortality to NCD risk factors in the EU: Systematic literature reviews are conducted to collate knowledge on the epidemiology and attributable mortality/morbidity of various NCD risk factors, providing a state-of-the-art surveillance description for MS.
- To develop and scale up best and promising practices to improve NCD prevention through the mitigation of risk factors or implementation of novel Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Interventions at the EU MS level: Promising practices are identified and later piloted in selected EU MS to mitigate NCD risk factors and support integrated policy approaches.
Expected outcomes
- Enhanced scientific and regulatory capacity in EU Member States, particularly for tobacco product regulation
- Key deliverables, including:
- Report on the EU-CEG task force activities
- Report on the sensory panel activities and ability to sustain EU Member State requests
- Final report compiling all actions and outputs of WP9
- Four evidence reports summarising available data on major NCD risk factors in the EU
- Five EU Member States incorporating sensory panel findings into regulation of flavoured tobacco products
- Eight Member States engaged in action, with four piloting and four implementing identified best practices for NCD prevention