Educating, creating awareness and empowering women with famIlial hypercholesterolemia: e-CREDENTIAL
The overarching objective of the project is to educate, create awareness and empower women with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH), a common(1 in 250) inherited form of dyslipidemia that greatly increases risk of early coronary heart disease (CHD) morbidity and mortality, by providing a health education and communication toolbox (eToolBox) tailored for women with FH in Cyprus and further tested in Greece. The etoolbox will include health information and messages towards screening and seeking diagnosis for women in the general population, but also in understanding risk and treatment options and goals that take into account not just age but also gender and reproductive rights for women with FH, promoting gender equality.The project will empower women to seek screening and participate in decisions about their health and the health of their family (through family screening options), thereby
supporting their physical but also mental well being (by acknowledging and addressing their risk for CHD).
The project’s outcomes will be the tangible result of a participatory formative research process, whereby educational and informational content about FH will be adapted to address the Cypriot socio-cultural setting/context priorities as well as the Cypriot General Health System and further tested in the Greek socio-cultural setting to see whether, especially the identified barriers and fears, resonate with women in Greece as well. Furthermore, these outcomes will be shared widely in order to reach a much wider audience and foster the possible creation of an FH patient network/group in Cyprus where none exists, further supporting the target group’s physical and mental well being and inclusion. This will develop independently based on the needs and expectations of the community of women with FH in Cyprus, with support from all partners.
To reinforce the main objective, a secondary objective is to further educate relevant health professionals on up-to-date, evidence-based, European guidelines on FH in women, by designing and delivering 4 webinars and case presentations which will be included in the eToolBox. This will help decrease the gender-based gap in FH diagnosis and treatment and promote gender equality by addressing not only the recipient of care but also the provider, driving change in both a bottom-up (women) and top-down (health professionals) approach.
Additionally, the project will use available information to make health providers aware of the possible unconscious bias in dyslipidemia screening and treatment in women and highlight issues specific to women, further promoting gender equality. CUT is an educational institution with strong similar societal outreach and responsibility actions, while the partners have both established national FH patient Registries to support their educational, research but especially social responsibility roles in population health.