“CHRODIS Plus" (2017-2020), a Joint Action which aims to support EU countries in implementing initiatives identified in the first CHRODIS Joint Action (2013-2017) to reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases, kicks off in Lithuania today.

Vytenis Andriukaitis, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, will open the event alongside Aurelijus Veryga, Lithuanian Minister of Health, Gauden Galea, Director for non-communicable diseases of WHO/EURO and Miklos Szocska, former Hungarian Minister of Health. He will emphasise the European Commission's commitment to help EU countries reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases, which affect eight out of 10 people over the age of 65, and account for 70-80% of healthcare spending in the EU.

The CHRODIS Plus consortium will then present the work packages and discuss practical matters such as administrative and financial arrangements, methodology and dissemination activities.

About CHRODIS Plus

CHRODIS Plus includes 42 partners from 18 EU countries plus Norway, Serbia and Iceland. Spain is the coordinator supported by Lithuania for the scientific coordination. The joint action will run for 3 years (September 2017- August 2020). The total budget is 6.8 million €, of which 5 million come from the 3^rd Health Programme.

CHRODIS PLUS focuses on implementing and pilot testing the results of CHRODIS, notably:

• Transferring five good practices in health promotion (three on children's health, one on work place health promotion and one on healthy ageing) to more EU countries;
• Field-testing the new care model for people with multi-morbidities in primary care and tertiary care hospitals in Lithuania, Italy and Spain; and
• Field-testing the recommendations to improve the quality of care for people with chronic diseases in primary care and secondary care hospitals in Slovenia, Serbia, Croatia, Finland and Greece.

These actions will be complemented a number of new activities, including:

• 14 national policy dialogues focusing mainly on health promotion;
• Two EU-level policy dialogues: one on innovative financing of health promotion and healthcare, and another on employing people with chronic conditions;
• Adapting a mHealth tool developed in Germany and piloting it in primary care settings in Spain and Bulgaria; and
• Developing and testing a training tool and toolkit aimed at helping employers adapt the workplace to prevent non-communicable diseases and/or keep people with chronic conditions in their jobs.

For more information:

• Chrodis website
• EU action on major and chronic diseases