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26.01.2026
Psychiatric hospital in Finland goes smoke-free
The Vanha Vaasa Hospital, situated in the Ostrobothnia region in Finland, made a significant change in 2025 by becoming the country’s first psychiatric hospital to switch to a smoke-free indoor environment. The forensic psychiatric hospital participates in the JA PreventNCD project pilot coordinated by Filha, which promote smoke-free workplaces and environments and develop tobacco and nicotine cessation practices in cooperation with social and health care. In the words of Jussi Niemi, a respiratory nurse at the Vanha Vaasa Hospital: “The reform proceeded relatively quickly. In April, the first ward began the trial, and by September, the last ward was declared a smoke-free zone”. The reform was partly accelerated by the preparation of a new hospital building, as no indoor smoking facilities were planned for it. In addition, the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s ruling, according to which hospitals do not have to separately organize indoor smoking facilities for patients in involuntary care, played a role. Psychiatric hospitals have traditionally allowed smoking indoors. While smoking is now prohibited indoors in Finland, including in prisons, psychiatric hospitals are one of the few places where indoor smoking is still permitted. “As part of the JA PreventNCD’s interventions, the hospital developed a tobacco and nicotine cessation model in addition to the smokefree indoors policy, and with this, patients will receive more effective support than before in quitting the use of nicotine products” explained Patrick Sandström, Filha's project manager. Successful change needs thorough preparation Jussi Niemi emphasised that it is worth starting the preparation for the change early and having an open discussion. From his perspective, it is important to empathise with patients’ concerns and feelings, as many patients may feel overwhelmed by the change and uncertain about the future. His recommendations include offering support, helping patients consider how they will cope in future and paying attention to staff concerns. Preparations for the change began by organizing training on tobacco and nicotine cessation in each ward while discussing the upcoming change. The topic was brought up with patients at an early stage. This way, the change did not come as a surprise, and patients and staff were given enough time to adapt and prepare. In addition, patients are offered support to quit smoking and the use of nicotine products through individual and group counseling. As part of the treatment, the hospital offers free-of-charge nicotine replacement therapy to patients who are committed to quitting. As a result of the change, many patients have cut down their smoking, and chain smoking, in particular, is now less common. When indoor smoking was allowed, some patients used to smoke every fifteen minutes, but with outdoor smoking, many patients have voluntarily reduced their smoking. In addition, outdoor smoking has significantly increased the physical activity of patients as they have the opportunity to go outside at least three times a day. This, in turn, has had a positive impact on patients’ lung health and their treatment. “The quality of indoor air has clearly improved in sensory-wise, meaning that the inside no longer smells of tobacco in the same way, and the indoor air is also fresher to breathe in” Jussi Niemi pointed out. However, while smoking has decreased, a significant increase in the use of nicotine pouches has been observed. Patients’ use of nicotine products is diverse: some smoke, some use nicotine pouches and some use e-cigarettes. Therefore, efforts to communicate the harmful effects of nicotine itself to patients have been increased and, furthermore, nicotine cessation practices have been updated at the hospital. Filhas experts in the JA PreventNCD project have provided guidance and support for implementing and carrying out the change. They have also trained staff on site, which significantly supported the promotion of smoke-free indoor environment and the development of tobacco and nicotine cessation programmes. The experience of Vanha Vaasa Hospital shows that transitioning to a smoke-free psychiatric setting is not only feasible, but also beneficial for patients, staff and the overall care environment. This experience offers an encouraging and practical reference for other psychiatric hospitals and care institutions across Europe, demonstrating that health-focused and smoke-free environments can be achieved while respecting patients’ needs and supporting their recovery.
https://www.preventncd.eu/newsroom/news-updates/psychiatric-hospital-in-finland-goes-smoke-free/
26.01.2026
JA PreventNCD kicks off its Stakeholder Group to strengthen collaboration and boost impact
JA PreventNCD held the first meeting of its Stakeholder Group on 22 January 2026, marking an important milestone in the project’s journey toward delivering stronger, more actionable prevention results across Europe. The Stakeholder Group brings together a diverse set of actors from the health sector and beyond to support the project’s work. Members will provide guidance, share expertise, and help ensure that JA PreventNCD outputs are relevant, practical, and widely communicated through professional networks and channels. As the project moves further into implementation and begins producing an increasing number of results and deliverables, the Stakeholder Group is expected to play a key role in helping those outputs reach the right audiences and have real-world impact. A first meeting focused on collaboration The session opened with a welcome and introduction from Sólveig Karlsdóttir, leader of the Communication and Dissemination work in JA PreventNCD, who also guided participants through an icebreaker and the purpose of the meeting. Sólveig highlighted the value of creating an organised and constructive forum where external stakeholders can contribute to the project’s direction and outcomes. The Stakeholder Group is designed to support JA PreventNCD not only by providing feedback, but also by strengthening the project’s ability to connect with decision-makers, practitioners, and wider networks across Europe. Introducing JA PreventNCD: aims, structure, and focus Participants were then introduced to JA PreventNCD’s overall mission and structure by Professor Knut-Inge Klepp, Scientific Coordinator of the project. JA PreventNCD is a large European collaboration working to strengthen prevention of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). The project has a strong focus on major risk factors including tobacco, alcohol, nutrition, and physical activity, reflecting areas where coordinated preventive action can have long-term benefits for population health. Knut-Inge described how the project is organised across multiple work packages and countries, and emphasised that meaningful prevention impact requires cross-sector collaboration and engagement at national and European levels. JA PreventNCD’s work is designed to support implementation and policy development through practical tools, outputs, and shared learning across participating countries. What is the Stakeholder Group and why does it matter? The purpose and structure of the Stakeholder Group were presented by Hugrún Snorradóttir, task leader for Stakeholder Analysis in JA PreventNCD. She explained that the Stakeholder Group has been created as a way to integrate stakeholder perspectives into the project’s work throughout its lifetime. This includes helping the consortium identify relevant challenges and opportunities, strengthening outputs with expert insight, and supporting communication and dissemination of results. A key feature of the Stakeholder Group is that it is designed to be flexible and topic-driven. Rather than following a one-size-fits-all model, the group allows JA PreventNCD to connect the right expertise to the right outputs at the right time. “The Stakeholder Group is an important bridge between JA PreventNCD and the wider community working on prevention across Europe. By inviting stakeholders to give targeted feedback on key outputs, we can strengthen the relevance and quality of what we produce. At the same time, stakeholders help us connect results to networks that can use them, share them, and build on them.” Hugrún Snorradóttir, leader of the Stakeholder Group in the JA PreventNCD. A stakeholder group with diverse expertise The Stakeholder Group brings together stakeholders from both health and other sectors to support the project’s objectives. This diversity is central to the group’s role, recognising that prevention requires collaboration that goes beyond public health institutions alone. Members of the group contribute by: Providing advice and feedback on project outputs and deliverables Sharing expertise linked to prevention priorities and cross-cutting themes Identifying challenges and opportunities relevant to the project’s objectives Supporting dissemination by sharing outputs through their networks and channels Strengthening connections with relevant European platforms and communities This approach is designed to create mutual value. Stakeholders have the opportunity to influence the development of outputs and ensure they reflect real needs in policy and practice. Meanwhile, the project benefits from external insight, guidance, and stronger reach beyond the consortium. Discussion: expectations and opportunities for engagement The agenda included a dedicated section on expectations for participation in the Stakeholder Group, followed by open discussion. Participants reflected on how stakeholder engagement can be most useful to the project in practice, including reviewing targeted outputs, identifying dissemination opportunities, and sharing perspectives from their own sectors and areas of expertise. The discussion also highlighted the importance of exploring both challenges and opportunities connected to the project’s objectives. These conversations will be developed further in future meetings, helping shape how JA PreventNCD outputs can support prevention efforts and policy development across Europe. Next steps: regular meetings and continued collaboration The meeting closed with next steps presented by Maruša Širk, the project’s Stakeholder Analysis task co-leader. The Stakeholder Group will meet again in the spring to further develop and discuss how to use the structure is efficiently and effectively as possible. Strengthening impact as outputs increase The first meeting of the Stakeholder Group marked the start of what will be an ongoing collaboration supporting JA PreventNCD’s work. As the project enters its later years and delivers more outputs, stakeholder engagement will become increasingly important. By connecting JA PreventNCD’s work with expert feedback and dissemination opportunities, the Stakeholder Group strengthens both the quality of results and the chances that they will be used in policy and practice. In doing so, the group supports a shared goal: advancing stronger, more coordinated prevention of NCDs across Europe.
https://www.preventncd.eu/newsroom/news-updates/ja-preventncd-kicks-off-its-stakeholder-group-to-strengthen-collaboration-and-boost-impact/
14.10.2025
Communicating for Impact: JA PreventNCD, JACARDI and WHO Join Forces to Strengthen Health Communication in Europe
It was two inspiring days in UN City, Copenhagen, where communication teams from JA PreventNCD, JACARDI, and WHO/Europe came together with a shared mission — to be big, bold, and brave in how we communicate health. With energy, optimism, and creativity, the teams explored how to strengthen trust, reframe narratives, and drive real change in the prevention of non-communicable diseases. The discussions reminded us that while our task is complex, the power of clear, positive, and collaborative communication can make a lasting difference to people’s health and wellbeing across Europe. Over the course of the two-day programme, JA PreventNCD, JACARDI, and the WHO Regional Office for Europe co-hosted two major events at UN City: From Strategy to Action: Strengthening Communication for NCD Prevention on 9 October and Communicating for Impact: Changing Health Narratives Together on 10 October. Each session gathered communicators, policymakers, and researchers to exchange insights and practical experiences, exploring how strategic storytelling, audience engagement, and trust-building can amplify the impact of public health communication and help reframe the conversation around NCD prevention across Europe.
https://www.preventncd.eu/newsroom/events/communicating-for-impact-ja-preventncd-jacardi-and-who-join-forces-to-strengthen-health-communication-in-europe/
06.10.2025
JA PreventNCD at the Slovenian National Public Health Conference 2025
At this year’s NKJZ Conference in Slovenia, there was a strong spotlight on the Joint Action PreventNCD (JA PreventNCD), having both a dedicated presentation session, as well as a dedicated project booth. Moderated by Mojca Gabrijelčič Blenkuš and Monika Robnik Levart, the session featured diverse presentations, including: Supportive environments for health as the foundation of disease prevention Evaluation of workplace health promotion and recommendations for future development Whole-school approach to health promotion Health promotion in academic settings with a focus on physical activity Expanding smoke-free environments to open and semi-open spaces Mechanism for meaningful youth engagement in European public health projects Corporate political activities of the food industry and their influence on nutrition policies Wellbeing economy as a sustainable tool for preventive action The first part of the session explored the role of environments in disease prevention and health promotion, while in the second part, concrete approaches and tools of JA PreventNCD for more effective policy implementation were presented. At the conference, there was also a JA PreventNCD’s dedicated project booth. There, the participants could discover more about the project’s goals and engage with the project team members. The presentations and dialogues shed importance of the project, raised awareness of the project’s goals and highlighted the importance of placing prevention at the forefront of public health discussions.
https://www.preventncd.eu/newsroom/news-updates/ja-preventncd-at-the-slovenian-national-public-health-conference-2025/
03.10.2025
Building healthier communities: a guide to local transformation
The Joint Action PreventNCD is developing 51 interventions —spread across 15 countries— to make living environments healthier places. This is one of the key commitments to tackling the incidence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Europe. Scientific evidence shows that scientific evidence shows that health is not only created in hospitals and doctors' offices, but also takes place in streets, schools, homes, urban spaces and in the social relationships we establish. Put simply, our health is determined by the environment we live and interact with on a daily basis. The collaborative work of communities with politicians and technicians from different municipal sectors such as urban planning, education, youth, etc. is absolutely essential when developing collective action to find common solutions to improve the health of the people and those facing diseases such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, or cancer living in this municipality, encouraging the proximity of the solutions. With the aim of catalysing a change in our living environments, the activities being carried out are focused on four action areas: establishment of child support communities and health services adapted to infants, facilitating access to healthier products, promoting healthier urban spaces and transforming environments to eliminate the presence of unhealthy products. This transformation permeates all stages of life and identify approaches to increase health equity among social groups. The complexity of coordinating such diverse actions —and in so many different places— requires a common methodology that harmonizes the work carried out in all the interventions. This approach will be summarised in the document A Guide to the Community Action Methodology and will be published in the Resources section of this website. It is a living working document that will be enriched with the experience gained during the implementation of the project. The guide will be published in a final interactive version on a capacity building platform together with the experiences of the different pilots in each step, the lessons learned, a selection of participative tools to help the work in each step and ready-to-use presentation slides. Overall, the goal is to become the decisive turning point in reducing the burden of NCDs.
https://www.preventncd.eu/newsroom/findings-reports/building-healthier-communities-a-guide-to-local-transformation/
23.09.2025
Youth Voices at the Heart of Europe’s Cardiovascular Health Plan
On 22 September, the Youth Advisory Group (YAG) of the JA PreventNCD took part in the European Commission’s online consultation on cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). The consultation was convened by DG SANTE as part of preparations for a new EU Cardiovascular Health (CVH) Plan. CVDs remain the leading cause of mortality in Europe, claiming over 1.7 million lives each year and costing the EU an estimated EUR 280 billion annually. The event gave young people living with or at risk of cardiovascular disease, as well as youth advocates, an opportunity to directly share their experiences and expectations with policymakers. The consultation, led by Antonio Parenti, director at DG SANTE, was framed around key questions from the European Commission, including how to support healthy lifestyles, ensure equal access to care, improve communication with young people, and shape a future EU prevention strategy. Youth delegates responded with lived experiences and concrete recommendations.
https://www.preventncd.eu/newsroom/news-updates/youth-voices-at-the-heart-of-europe-s-cardiovascular-health-plan/
19.09.2025
From Car Streets to People Streets: Health and Sustainability in Action
From 16 to 22 September, Europe celebrates the European Mobility Week, an initiative led by the European Commission that invites cities to rethink how we move and to discover healthier, more sustainable alternatives to private cars. Each year, hundreds of municipalities organize activities to promote walking, cycling, and public transport. Pilot actions such as temporary street closures or pop-up cycle lanes allow citizens to experience a different way of living the city. This week is not only about mobility: it is an opportunity to talk about health. Urban space and the way it is designed have a direct impact on quality of life. The air we breathe, the safety of our streets, or the opportunities for physical activity all depend on how transport and the city are planned. When cars dominate, pollution and noise increase, opportunities for walking and play decrease, and inequalities between neighborhoods deepen. In contrast, when active mobility and green spaces are prioritized, both physical and mental wellbeing improve, and the city becomes safer and more cohesive. It is in this context that the Joint Action on Cancer and other NCDs prevention – action on health determinants (JA PreventNCD) was created, co-funded by the EU4Health programme. More than 100 organizations from 25 countries are working together with a common goal: to prevent non-communicable diseases —such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, or diabetes— and to reduce health inequalities. One of the most relevant lines of work focuses on healthy urban environments, exploring how mobility and urban planning policies can help reduce risk factors while at the same time making cities more liveable. A concrete example of this approach is the transformation of spaces around schools. Several European cities are promoting so-called school streets: areas where motorized traffic is restricted or eliminated, at least during drop-off and pick-up times. These measures bring multiple benefits: they improve the air children breathe, reduce the risk of accidents, encourage families to walk or cycle, and turn the school environment into a calmer and safer place. They also open up opportunities for community use, such as educational or recreational activities in the street. JA PreventNCD is studying how these initiatives are being put into practice: which political and social factors make them possible, which obstacles appear, and what results they produce for health and wellbeing. The aim is to learn from experience and to provide useful recommendations for other municipalities, both in the Valencian region and across Europe. In this sense, the European Mobility Week is a perfect framework to show how local actions can contribute to broader goals. The pilot projects and car-free streets that take place during these days prove that it is possible to imagine and build cities differently. What begins as a public awareness activity can end up becoming a permanent policy with great impact on public health. Cities are home to more than 70% of Europe’s population, and this proportion continues to grow. Deciding what kind of cities we want is also deciding how we want to live. Choosing active mobility, cleaner air, and safe, green spaces means choosing a future with less disease and greater equity. The European Mobility Week reminds us that every step counts. Through JA PreventNCD, we work to ensure that these transformations are not isolated exceptions, but part of a coherent strategy to build healthier and more resilient cities. Cities where everyday journeys become a source of wellbeing rather than risk. Cities that put people at the centre, and make the right to health a shared reality. Author: Alejandro Parra Alejandro works at Fisabio in Valencia, Spain and is a member of the team that focuses on Healthy Living Environments (WP6) in JA PreventNCD. He leads the pilot on the mapping of the current interventions on car-free areas in the cities and/or around schools and other child settings, as well as school playgrounds redevelopments.
https://www.preventncd.eu/newsroom/cross-cutting-themes/from-car-streets-to-people-streets-health-and-sustainability-in-action/