laborcare

Il 14 giugno 2017 alle ore 14.00 presso il Centro Didattico Morgagni a Firenze si terrà il convegno "Ethnicity and hipertension in a changin Europe". Di seguito il flyer e la presentazione in inglese.

Demographic shifts and societal changes are intensifying pressures on health systems, demanding new responses for addressing ethnic inequalities in health. In 1990 a physician in Italy had few opportunities to meet a person belonging to an ethnic minority. Over the past decades this scenario has changed dramatically and the possibility to meet these new patients in the hospital ward or outpatient clinic is now high. However, scientific and cultural training of health workers on health needs of minority groups is still limited and sometimes probably skewed. Furthermore, the efficacy of prevention strategies in reaching some population subsections is probably limited by cultural factors and the lack of understanding or awareness of services are recognized barriers to their access to health centres. Subjects originating from Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia have higher risk of stroke than native Europeans, South Asians have elevated risk of coronary heart disease, and the prevalence of main risk factors (hypertension and diabetes) was found to be higher in most minority groups than in the native population. For other minority groups, such as Chinese, new data have been recently provided.

In 2012 the Council of the European Society of Hypertension (ESH) supported the creation of a new Working Group (WG) composed by members who identified the missions to increase the diagnosis, treatment and control of risk factors in low income countries and in minority groups living in Europe, to validate algorithm for CV risk assessment, to develop instruments for screening purposes, and to explore possible pharmacological and non-pharmacological prevention strategies to be implemented in ethnic minorities.

Present Meeting assembles a group of world-renowned members of the ESH WG with complementary expertise in hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases to review available information on chronic diseases in ethnic minorities, to stress the attention of researchers on what has been done in different European Countries, and to propose new strategies. In particular three main aspects are covered for a better understanding of 1) prevalence of risk factors, stroke and CV diseases in the ethnic minority groups to identify potential drivers predisposing ethnic minorities to CV diseases; 2) the most appropriate strategies for treatment recognition and prevention of at risk sub-populations to tailor health services according to needs; and finally 3) the perspective of new specific interventions at community level in ethnic minority groups. We thank ESH for giving us the opportunity to present our results in Florence. It is now the time to move the issue of health of ethnic minorities higher up on the agenda of Europe.

Flyer