Webinar 18 November 14.00-15.30 CET Although children are less vulnerable to becoming severely ill from the novel coronavirus, the pandemic has had a significant effect on the wellbeing and lifestyle of families — and children — across the globe.
The YOUTH HEALTH COMMUNITY www.youthhealthcommunity.com has organised a webinar with the aim of connecting local and national professionals, policymakers, academics with representatives from the private sector who work on and are interested in healthy lifestyle and environments for young people worldwide.
I am pleased to speak with Professor Tommy Visscher about the initiative and impetus around the upcoming webinar.
It’s great to have Dr Tommy Visscher, Team leader Education and research at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, The Netherlands. here to promote the launch of this important upcoming event focused on the impact of the novel coronavirus on the lives of our children.
Tommy, tell us about JOGG https://jongerenopgezondgewicht.nl What’s your role in the organisation?
JOGG supports the development and continuation of healthy cities. The programme supports almost 200 healthy cities in The Netherlands, and the programme ambition is to inspire and learn from other networks of healthy cities worldwide. I chair the Scientific Advisory Board and I am an advisor for their international platform Youth Health Community for JOGG.
This is an important and timely project. What were the driving principles in developing this initiative?
Healthy cities have been a focus of the global health community throughout the world over the past two decades. Many of them have been united under the umbrella of the EPODE International Network. Early 2020 this network transitioned into a new platform, the Youth Health Community, which is coordinated by JOGG. With this consortium, JOGG has the ambition to re-connect, extend and expand the network.
At the same time, the Dutch government initiated a milestone policy focus by making prevention an high visibility focus topic of political agendas. For two years now, the prevention and management of obesity has been amongst the top 3 priorities of the Ministry of Health, sitting aside smoking cessation and alcohol policy in prominence.
As our community is well aware, the COVID-19 crisis has made clear the need to improve our work on prevention and health promotion. The aim of this webinar is to inspire and learn from one another around the importance of healthy cities in promoting the health and quality of life of our citizens and to better protect populations from both known and unexpected health threats. We look forward to welcoming you to our live webinar, please register in advance as space is limited.
PDF of programme with registration link:
Find out more and register.