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Table of Content

1. Welcome Message 2. Information about Diabetes a) Public Health Perspective b) World Diabetes Day 4. Activities a) Prevention b) Awareness c) Advocacy 5. Experiences a) IFMSA-Egypt b) CroMSIC-Croatia 6. Externals a)NCD Alliance b)International Diabetes Federation 7. Evaluation a) Proof of the impact of the activity b) Why evaluate c) Tools for evaluation !

Dearest SCOPHeroes, !It is that time of the year again:one where we put on our latex gloves, take out our glucometers and go out on the streets, hunting for some blood. If you recognized yourself in this slightly vampire-ish description you must know that the World Diabetes Day (WDD) is upon us. Commemorated on the 14.11., WDD is one day that many National Member Organizations celebrate in different capacities ranging from public gatherings to organizing more intimate educational meetings to raise awareness within student community about the diabetes. Seeing that there is a substantial interest to work on this topics, as well as the IFMSA Program “Healthy Lifestyles and Noncommunicable Diseases” approved at the MM2015, the SCOPH International Team together with the “Healthy Lifestyles and Noncommunicable Diseases” Program Coordinator decided to develop a toolkit to help you and to give you ideas about the activities you can do. ! We first of all want to applaud everyone who already has an activity planned for the WDD - please let us hear more about it! Secondly, to all of you who do not have something planned we would like to offer our full support in planning and executing an amazing activity for this important day. As always, the SCOPH IT is here to offer full support to all IFMSA Public Health enthusiasts. ! In the name of the SCOPH IT, Always yours, Jozo Schmuch

Welcome Message

!a) Public Health Perspective Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs when the body cannot produce enough insulin or cannot use insulin effectively. Insulin is a hormone produced in the pancreas that allows glucose from food to enter the body’s cells where it is converted into energy needed by muscles and tissues to function. A person with diabetes does not absorb glucose properly, and glucose remains circulating in the blood (a condition known as hyperglycaemia) damaging body tissues over time. This damage can lead to disabling and life-threatening health complications. !The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) estimates that 8.3% of adults – 382 million people – have diabetes, and the number of people with the disease is set to rise beyond 592 million in less than 25 years. Yet, with 175 million cases currently undiagnosed, a vast amount of people with diabetes are progressing towards complications unaware. Moreover, with 80% of the total number affected living in low- and middle-income countries where the epidemic is gathering pace at alarming rates the IDF

Diabetes Atlas’ latest figures provide a worrying indication of the future impact of diabetes as a major threat to global development. Diabetes in all its forms imposes unacceptably high human, social and economic costs on countries at all income levels. !b) World Diabetes Day: World Diabetes Day (WDD) is celebrated annually on November 14. Led by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), the World Diabetes Day campaign was created in 1991 by IDF and the World Health Organization in response to the growing concerns about the escalating health threats posed by diabetes. Activities and materials in 2015 will focus on healthy eating as a key factor in the successful prevention of diabetes and a cornerstone of health and sustainable development.

There are many different ways that an NMO or Public Health team can be active and celebrate World Diabetes Day. Whenever designing an event, always make sure you keep into account what your objective is, what your message is and who your target group is, as well as a method of evaluation of your event. This will make it easier to both improve the event if you decide to organize it once more in the following years and share your experience and outcomes with other NMOs. The following are some ideas that could help you design your own activity:

Activities: Prevention: Screening event Organize a screening event to both raise awareness, and impact prevention: → Measure blood glucose with gluco-meters, as well as blood pressure. 1. Inform people about healthy diet and lifestyle habits 2.Encourage physical activity 3. Encourage people at risk to see a doctor Make sure you keep count (or some form of basic information) of all the people you are able to communicate with. !

ADVOCACY University Does your school cafeteria serve many high-sugar products? Are there too few physical activity programs offered at your school? Taking advantage of the celebration of the WDD can be a good starting point to open a conversation with various departments in your university and start provoking change for

your student colleagues. Community Each community has weak spots, some which you could impact

as future health professionals!

Start a conversation with

local officials to have a stronger influence on

health where you live. Country

Is there a policy in your country which could be modified in regards to prevention for diabetes? Getting in contact with your national Public Health department, or with other members of your government can be the start of a process which will eventually lead to change for the better.

AWARENESS Information Stand Distribute flyers, stickers, pins and information about Diabetes, either in your University or City. → To create eye-catching infographics you could try using piktochart.com or canva.com. → choose few messages, but very clear ones that you want to share with your target group. → Remember, it is not only about letting people know about diabetes, but also about letting people know about what it means to be a person -with- diabetes, and the related social issues that can arise as consequence (eating disorders, discrimination,...). !Party Organizing a party at your university will help both raise funds and awareness about your cause. It can be the perfect prelude to the organization of a Conference or recruitment of motivated students who could help you with your project in the future. 1. make the theme of the party clear 2. ensure you have a strategy for follow-up!

Yes, All of IFMSA-Egypt went blue for breakfast this day to share the common theme highlighted by the International Diabetes Federation and the World Health Organization. Actually, IFMSA-Egypt has never overlooked the World Diabetes Day celebration and every year it waits for this day to advocate for better Public Health awareness as concerns to different health approaches, as well as, to raise medical students’ knowledge about the latest interventions and research in the field of diabetes management. !Knowing that the World Diabetes Day is a truly global event that occurs in more than 160 countries, that it is a Global Health issue contributing to high mortality and morbidity rates worldwide, and the fact that Egypt specifically has one of the greatest burdens of diabetic people on the globe pushes us to increase our efforts every year to contribute to this global event nationally in Egypt. !Last year, the celebration took place in a public club, during which members from all over Egypt attended to raise the public’s awareness about such a large issue. We had the Arab Medical Union as a partner who provided us with

scientific speakers addressing different aspects of the issue. !The talks were about the risk factors fueling the prevalence of diabetes, how those risk factors are modifiable and how medical students can contribute to public awareness and community improvement. After that a march took place advocating for healthy lifestyles. Then the fun part started: through some members’ talents of singing, beat boxing and standup comedy shows the public was involved and also indirectly provided the health message. !3 days prior the celebration, parallel local awareness campaigns in all the NMO’s LCs were organized, through which spreading awareness and providing screening for blood sugar levels and blood pressure were made. Additionally, promoting for the national celebration was astonishingly successful through those campaigns; the celebration witnessed lots of media coverage and reportages recording what the future physicians of the country were advocating and looking for and from here came the most powerful impact.

IFMSA Egypt -Go Blue for Breakfast

INTRODUCTION As we all know, World Diabetes Day is celebrated all over the world on the 14th of November. Every year, a lot of organizations and associations organize different types of events to raise awareness and educate people on this chronic diseases with severe consequences. In Croatia, CroMSIC has been leading awareness campaigns throughout the years, which mostly involve blood sugar measuring and handing out flyers and questionnaires. !PUBLIC HEALTH CAFE Last year we decided to take a different approach, considering that a lot of medical students are actually not really educated on all the aspects of diabetes. This mostly involves a Public Health approach and some new methods in treatment, which are not included in the medical school curriculum. Our initiative was to form a new education method, mostly directed to medical students, who can freely lead

conversations with

CroMSIC Croatia - Public Health Cafeexperts in certain areas. We named the initiative Public Health Cafe. It is organized approximately once a month, with different Public Health themes and issues. One of the biggest innovations in this approach is that the atmosphere is informal, so the students have no shame in asking different questions, which may have been left unanswered during their classes. On the 14th of November 2014 we organized the first Public Health Cafe, and our guest was Kristina Blaslov, MD, diabetes specialist from one of the biggest hospitals in Zagreb. !The students were very interested in this approach and extremely satisfied with the subject and the guest. We also had some students who suffer from diabetes, so they shared with us their experiences and the difficulties they encounter when living with diabetes.

4. Evaluation !It is important to have feedback, which serves as an evaluation. We mostly relied on questionnaires, considering they give us valuable input about the knowledge of the students before and after the initiative. “Pre-” and “post-” questionnaires were handed out, we analyzed the improvement and with this information we were ready to plan other activities. Also, we were given feedback about the initiative itself, so we can work on the possible weaknesses of the project. The evaluation part is extremely important, especially now when Programs are collecting all the information.

HOW TO ORGANIZE IT? One of the main reasons I am writing this is to show how such a simple initiative can lead to better involvement of students in Public Health and improve education. The whole project is simple to organize, if you are following a few basic inputs: 1. End-goal First of all, you need to think of a main end-goal, and how to work towards it. For us, it was to empower medical students so they can in the future be Public Health advocates and spread the knowledge further. 2. Topics Next, it is important to consider Public Health issues relevant for your country and which will be of interest to students. In Croatia there was a lot of talk about vaccination, so this was one of our subjects for the Public Health Cafe. Also, anti-microbial resistance is currently one of the most important topics in pharmacology and clinical medicine, so we have had a Public Health Cafe dedicated to it. 3. Guests The guest who will be delivering the subject needs to be well acquainted with the issue, and have a straight approach about how medical students can be involved in the solution.

Externals:

a)IDF & National members: !The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) is a worldwide alliance of over 200 diabetes associations in more than 160 countries, who have come together to enhance the lives of people with diabetes everywhere. For over 50 years, the IDF has been at the vanguard of global diabetes advocacy. The Federation is committed to raising global awareness of diabetes, promoting appropriate diabetes care and prevention, and encouraging activities towards finding a cure for the different types of diabetes. It is the mission of the IDF to promote diabetes care, prevention and a cure worldwide. The World Diabetes Day – November 14th was introduced in 1991 by IDF and WHO in response to the alarming rise in diabetes around the world. IFMSA has actively been participating in the Campaign since November 2007. !

b)NCD Alliance: !The NCDA is an alliance of four NGOs: the International Union against Cancer (UICC), the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), the World Heart Federation (WHF) and the International Union against Lung Disease and Tuberculosis (The Union), and it was created in May 2009. The NCDA represents the four main NCDs outlined in the World Health Organization’s 2008-2013 Action Plan for NCDs: Cardiovascular Diseases (CVDs), Cancer, Chronic Respiratory Diseases and Diabetes. They also represent the four shared risk factors, namely, tobacco use, harmful use of alcohol, physical inactivity and unhealthy diets. The NCDA works towards the recognition of NCDs as a major cause of poverty, a barrier to economic development and as a global emergency. !!

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a) Proof of impact this kind of activity has !i. Communication with the general population: the public generally feels comfortable with medical students as a model for health promotion and do not have difficulties in sharing their thoughts and engaging in campaigns. ii. Advocacy campaigns can be effective if they are evidence-based and aim for goals that are feasible in a timely manner to make a sustainable change in the society. !b) Why evaluate !Evaluating your projects is a crucial step in order to compare the results with the initial objectives of your campaign and measure the impact that was created at the end. It is useful to know the things that have worked and the things to be improved or changed for the next activity that will be more solid. Is it also essential to include the members that took part in preparing your project or campaign because the lessons learnt from this project will serve as a basis for future projects. In 3 key points: 1. So you know whether it is working 2. So you are aware of unintended outcomes and can adapt 3. To build organizational resilience within the members who took part of the project.

Evaluation:

c. Tools for evaluation !i. “Pre-” and ”post-” surveys If you are to conduct workshops or conferences, it would be good to share pre-surveys to assess the preliminary knowledge of the target group on issues related to the topic of the event (e.g Quiz). At the end, assess if their opinion and responses changed following the event, to evaluate the level of comprehension and the take-home message ii. Analysis of the statistics and impact assessment If you are to organize massive outreach campaigns targeting the general population (e.g screening campaigns), you can analyze the data collected in a form of a retrospective study that will show correlations in the results found, but also provide recommendations for further campaigns in the methodology used. iii. Evaluation meetings Meet with your active members after your activity to evaluate what went well, what is to be improved and share general impressions on the activity. It will strengthen the team-building and praise the members who have participated. !

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Toolkit developed by:

Jozo Schmuch - SCOPH Director 2015-2016

Eleonora Frau - SCOPH RA Europe 2015-2016

Hana Lučev - NCDs Program Coordinator

2015-2016

Omneya Mahmoud - SCOPH RA EMR

2015-2016

Skander Essafi LPH 2015-2016