Project results
- established local contacts with primary care workers, school headmasters, and administrations of territorial communities (for Ukraine – Burshtyn town, villages Pijlo, Tysmenychany, and Stetseva, Ivano-Frankivsk town) to further screen their population for overweight, obesity, and diabetes;
- developed a project website (http://www.prepod.org.ua), that contains bilingual information and materials for the population, clinicians, and scientists involved in the project. The web page content is updated on a regular basis;
- developed and produced educational information materials for the population and clinicians;
- purchased a vehicle (car) and all the necessary equipment with supplies that allow performing the screening campaigns, measuring health outcomes, and processing the data collected from the screened general population (adults and children) in selected target local communities;
- trained staff and students (83 people from Ukraine and 68 people Romania) in measuring health indicators and collecting information during a screening of target groups; they have been instructed on how to perform data collection and interpretation, entry, analysis and graphing using current software, compile an integrated report and present the results;
- examined the attitudes about, and perceived barriers of nutrition counseling/education of 62 health providers;
- provided nutrition counseling and nutrition education training (two one-day seminars for health providers was held at the “Reikartz Park Hotel Ivano-Frankivsk” in Ukraine with the participation of Romanian partners and renowned Ukrainian scientists and practitioners working in the fields of clinical biochemistry, endocrinology, and nutrition). Generally, 106 health providers have been trained;
- using the “Health on Wheels” mobile clinic, from December 2021 to August 2022, a screening of the population of the Ivano-Frankivsk region was conducted. Target settlements included Burshtyn, Tysmenychany, Stetseva, Piylo and Ivano-Frankivsk. The examined participants were divided into two groups. In the first group, the presence of overweight or obesity was determined, and in the second, the presence of prediabetes or previously undiagnosed diabetes was determined. Among the 565 examined in the first group, 224 people (39.6%) were overweight or obese. Of the 470 people in the second group, 80 (17%) had prediabetes or previously undiagnosed diabetes;
- through the mass media, brochures/postcards and personalized counseling, carried out a series of information and educational campaigns for the general public about the risks of developing obesity, diabetes, as well as about a healthy diet, which contributes to reducing the risks of developing non-infectious diseases among the population.
Both teams from Romania and Ukraine have worked complementarily.
Such cooperation made it possible to gain an understanding of the current situation regarding the indicators of obesity and type 2 diabetes in the cross-border region of Ukraine-Romania and allows scientists of the project to make scientifically based decisions on improving the early detection of non-communicable diseases and slowing down the rate of disease growth in these areas.