Category: Health

STEP_UP partners wrapped up the project in Frankfurt

The final Transnational Project Meeting of STEP_UP | Stop Epidemic Growth Through Learning took place on the last week of February in Frankfurt, Germany.  We now say goodbye to the consortium that worked together since December 2020 aiming to introduce social care and community stakeholders to the impact of behaviours in the spread of a pandemic/emergency situation and also, on how to prevent and cope with these types of situations. However, the collaboration remains and will continue, to ensure that the project results will be used, exploited and leveraged on further! At the end of this project, we are proud to showcase: This last meeting allowed to go through the final details and think about the sustainability of the project for the future!  It was a huge pleasure for SHINE as project Coordinator to work together with AFEdemy, ISIS, CIPH and Wise Angle….Continue Reading STEP_UP partners wrapped up the project in Frankfurt

STEP_UP Multiplier Event in Germany

On 29 November, the STEP_UP Multiplier Event took place in Frankfurt am Main, hosted by the Public Health Department of the municipality. Visitors were informed and handed out at a stall designed for the STEP_UP project. In a panel discussion, the making of the STEP_UP game was presented, and representatives of the Health Department reported their experiences from the pandemic. The discussions focussed on lessons that were learned for the future. In a computer room, the 25 participants could play the game and gave an unanimous positive feedback. Many participants announced that it will be considered an important educational tool for usage in their own work….Continue Reading STEP_UP Multiplier Event in Germany

Multiplier Event of the STEP_UP project

The Multiplier Event of the European Project STEP_UP: Stop epidemic growth through learning will be held on 9 November 2022, from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm, in a face-to-face and hybrid format, at the Nursing School of Coimbra. STEP_UP is an Erasmus+ project, coordinated by SHINE 2Europe, which during the last two years has developed a training tool based on an educational game, which aims to raise awareness of the impact of behaviours in the spread of a pandemic/emergency situation. This training material is aimed at adult education, with particular emphasis on community leaders, informal carers and volunteers, social and health professionals, who can learn about preventive measures and their different impacts at individual, work, family, governmental and other levels. The main objective of this event is to share knowledge and the results achieved during the project: The project will be presented during the morning session by the representative of the Portuguese partner SHINE 2Europe, Carina Dantas, with a presentation on the process, methods and results. In the afternoon session, led by Francesco Camonita from the Spanish partner Wise Angle and SHINE 2Europe, an active methodology will be used to allow participants to experience, through hands-on learning, how the online game works and to access the content first-hand, learn and try out the practical exercises. We intend that a wide community can benefit from this action. Therefore, the event will be inserted in a Conference with an extended programme, dedicated to social innovation, learning and implementation and will count with hundreds of national and international participants interested in these themes, so we invite you to participate in all the other sessions that you consider relevant. The event is subject to (free) registration HERE and you can check the agenda:…Continue Reading Multiplier Event of the STEP_UP project

COVID-19 measures. Results of a survey 

By Willeke van Staalduinen and Jonas Bernitt (AFEdemy)  The need to improve societal communication and the monitoring of measures is one of the main conclusions in the STEP_UP survey. A total of 133 people answered the questionnaire that the STEP_UP project team (WISE, ISIS, AFEdemy, SHINE and the Croatian health institute) shared among social, healthcare and municipal workers. Each project partner shared the survey with one professional group, specifically volunteers, social care workers, healthcare professionals, healthcare workers and municipality officials.  In early 2022, the STEP_UP project team asked healthcare, social care and municipal workers to give their opinion on the COVID-measures we found in literature. We asked their opinions on the following measures: In total the survey received 133 respondents, mainly from Croatia, The Netherlands, Portugal and Germany.  Questions on social measures were answered by 22 social care workers, 10 volunteers and 44 people with other professions. Quarantine and preventive measures were seen by them as best to prevent the virus from further spreading. Tracing apps were seen as not effective and scored negatively on acceptance by society. Especially preventive measures (distancing, hygiene, wearing masks) and quarantine were well accepted by the respondents. Suggestions for improvement included better monitoring of compliance during quarantines and clearer communication when a quarantine should be carried out. Tracing apps could be improved by a better design, higher data protection and more energy efficiency.   31 healthcare professionals and 19 public health workers gave their opinion on healthcare measures. They gave the highest scores to the establishment of a separate COVID-19 station and to preventive measures. On the contrary they had a negative opinion on the cancellation or restriction of less urgent medical services and treatments. In this context seven participants pointed out that healthcare systems need to be available to everyone. Suggestions for improvement were to communicate some measures and their function more clearly or to start earlier with certain measures such as wearing masks.   The last surveyed group consisted of workers in municipalities who evaluated the political measures. As most effective to combat the virus were seen a lockdown, fostering public engagement, the building of a taskforce and mandatory testing. The acceptance of measures by society shows another picture: As fostering public engagement, followed by building a taskforce scored best, mandatory testing was seen as least acceptable. Improvements on the measures included to increase the communication on lockdowns and the number of controls in rural areas.   In the last section of the survey, participants could recommend further measures. Among others they advised: a containment of access rights to people who are unvaccinated, a mandatory vaccination, the development of measures that are suitable for people with hearing issues, the involvement of experts, rules regarding working at home and the continuation of rules after the pandemic to prevent from diseases such as zoonosis. Additionally, respondents provided comments that more coordination with neighboring countries was needed, that there should have been more attention to mental health and that there was in general less accessibility of primary health care.   The detailed survey results including all quantitative results and all open answers are summarized in a Tablebook and an Accompanying presentation, which is highlighting the best and worst rated social-, healthcare- and political measures. Moreover, the full survey results will also be worked out in a scientific article, to be submitted by Jonas Bernitt.  …Continue Reading COVID-19 measures. Results of a survey 

Long-term strategy with Corona, The Netherlands

By Willeke van Staalduinen, AFEdemy, Academy on Age-Friendly Environments in Europe B. V. (willeke@afedemy.eu). On April 1st 2022, the Dutch government released its view on the long-term strategy for COVID-19. The government considers that in March 2022, most corona rules went away and The Netherlands is open again. The government would like to keep it that way. At the same time, the virus is not going away. Therefore a strategy is needed. Read more information here….Continue Reading Long-term strategy with Corona, The Netherlands

Lecture on “Ethics and Digital Health”

On the 17 June, Carina Dantas, SHINE’s CEO, gave a lecture on “Ethics and Digital Health” to the students of the Universidade do Porto, based on the classical philosophical concept of ethics as the striving for the best lifestyle, both in private and in public. We discussed from #SHAFE and NET4Age-Friendly to the ethical excellence in the AAL Programme and the need of an Ethics framework for the ICT profession;Approached concepts such as health and wellbeing, co-creation, integration of care and empathic design;Projects such as #STEP_UP, #BIG, #DESIRE, #SDD and the conclusions of the study on the impact of the COVID19 in European CSOs we delivered to the Diversity Europe Group – EESC (European Economic and Social Committee);And policy work such as the #euageingand the Council conclusions on mainstreaming ageing in all policies by the #EU2021PT The search for ethical excellence is long, multidisciplinary and an endless, but super interesting task!…Continue Reading Lecture on “Ethics and Digital Health”