Collective projects

The EU has ample experience in building and running data repositories to support biomedical research. Notable initiatives are ELIXIR and the European Genome-phenome Archive, storing many types of data up to the population-wide level. Similar expertise exists in Canada notably via IHEC (International Human Epigenome Consortium) and its Data Portal as well as PhenomeCentral, a repository for clinicians and scientists working on human rare disorders.

The world is facing a critical healthcare problem: due to a growing and aging population increasingly exposed to a number of well-known and new risk factors, cancer is becoming one of the most important public health problems worldwide.

The building stock in Europe today is not fit to support a shift from institutional care to the home-based independent living model for the ageing population.

The Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD) aims to coordinate research on chronic diseases at a global level in order to enhance knowledge exchange across individual projects, and to better understand the impact of socio-economic, cultural, geopolitical and policy on research findings, so as to appropriately adapt interventions and scale-up to different geographical, economic and cultural settings.

Health conditions linked to end-of-life issues, acute and chronic pain, life-threatening non-communicable diseases, late or long term side effects and consequences of diseases and their treatments impact quality of life and pose an immense societal and economic burden. Palliative, end-of-life and survivorship care benefits patients with malignant and non-malignant chronic health conditions, providing relief from their symptoms and improving their quality of life. From 38% to 74.0% of the affected population is estimated to be in need of palliative care.

Citizens in ageing populations wish to stay in their homes for as long as possible. They are however at risk of age related impairments such as poor health, cognitive impairment, frailty and social exclusion with considerable negative consequences for their independence, quality of life, that of those who care for them, and for the sustainability of health and care systems.

The Communication on the mid-term review of the implementation of the Digital Single Market Strategy (COM(2017)228) identified three priorities on digital transformation of health and care (DTHC): citizens' access to their data; data infrastructure; interaction between citizens and healthcare providers for better health management. That document indicated that specific measures would be elaborated in a dedicated Communication to be adopted in the months to follow.

Demographic change and the ageing of the population create new heterogeneous challenges for age-friendly living, recreational and working environments such as a shrinking workforce and increasing numbers of workers with functional impairments, chronic conditions, care duties or re-integration in and later retirement from the labour market.

Infectious diseases, in particular epidemics and antimicrobial resistance, pose significant threats to the social, economic and health security of communities and countries around the world. However, these diseases also transcend borders and require multi-sectoral and multi-jurisdictional co-operation and preparedness to ensure the world is safe from global threats.

ICT infrastructures and data have become critical for the functioning of the hospitals and care systems. Due to increasing connectivity, the exposure to risks of cyber-crime is constantly increasing. Cyber-attacks are a potential danger to the safety of patients and to the privacy of sensitive health data. Some cybersecurity threats are caused by human errors or ignorance.

Scope

Awareness raising of staff working in healthcare settings on security and data privacy is important to reduce cybersecurity vulnerabilities and exposure.