Working Groups on Diet-related Diseases (2017)

BACKGROUND
Chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases, stroke, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes, are the leading causes of death worldwide. Furthermore, treatment of people with chronic diseases accounts for the majority of the healthcare cost in Europe and other western countries. High blood pressure, overweight and obesity, hyperglycaemia and hyperlipidaemia are four key metabolic/physiopathological alterations increasing the risk of chronic diseases. Unhealthy dietary habits and low levels of physical activity are known to cause dysregulation of these sets of metabolic risk factors. Therefore, the promotion of healthy lifestyles with better diets and increased levels of physical activity is of utmost importance for prevention of the onset of diet-related chronic diseases in Europe and beyond.

AIM OF THE CALL
By establishing working groups the JPI HDHL aimed to support transnational cooperation and communication between individual researchers, research groups and research organisations in order to merge knowledge, data and research results. This would improve our capacity to understand the qualitative and quantitative links between diet, nutritional phenotype and risk factors for diet-related chronic diseases. Examples of outputs of the working groups were white papers, prospective views, guidelines, or best practice frameworks of value to the wider research community and with societal impact.

WHO
The application must be led by a coordinator who is eligible to one of the participating funding organizations listed in table 1. Only transnational Working Groups will be funded: each Working Group must involve a minimum of three JPI HDHL countries; of which the coordinator and at least one other partner should be eligible for the participating funding organisations listed in table 1. Working Groups can include key-expertise from partners from countries outside the JPI HDHL. For reasons of transnational balance, no more than two project partners from the same country are allowed to join a Working Group.