Dear GlobalSkin Members,
2024 is off to a busy start as we continue to make progress across GlobalSkin’s strategic objectives:
- Elevate - Amplifying the voice of the dermatology patient community globally
- Champion - Ensuring a strong and representative global voice for people affected by dermatological diseases
- Unite - Changing the way the world perceives dermatological conditions
To Elevate our community, we continue to grow and now have 260 Member organizations, representing 58 disease areas and 72 countries! We now have members in two new countries – Costa Rica and South Korea.
Additionally, GlobalSkin is planning its first onsite African Members’ Regional Meeting with 30+ African patient organization members from 12 countries in Nairobi, Kenya in April. this ground-breaking event will strengthen our African network of dermatology patient organizations so that the lives of the patients they serve are positively impacted in meaningful ways.
To Champion your global voice, GlobalSkin, alongside the ILDS, will participate in official meetings with key departments of the World Health Organization (WHO) for the second year in a row. In addition to these meetings in Geneva in late March, a meeting has also been organized for us to brief permanent missions of WHO Member States to seek their support in bringing forward for an all-skin diseases resolution at the 2025 World Health Assembly .
GlobalSkin also co-hosted an online roundtable with the European Society for Dermatological Research (ESDR) on “High-burden but Under-Researched: Policy Responses to Address Under-Prioritized Skin Diseases" which brought together experts, policymakers, and key stakeholders in the field of dermatology and public health.
To Unite our community and change the way the world perceives dermatological conditions, we continue to focus on our ground-breaking GRIDD project. We will see many important achievements this year as the researchers at the University of Hamburg analyze data from the GRIDD Study in which many of you and your patients participated. I am happy to share too that we have had another manuscript published on the project in The Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (JEADV) and look forward to more future publishing opportunities.
As a founding Partner and Secretariat for the World Skin Health Coalition, GlobalSkin played an instrumental role in launching a worldwide campaign #NotJustMySkin, aimed at raising awareness about the challenges experienced by millions of people around the world every day because of their skin diseases and conditions. We invite you to participate in and promote this global awareness campaign that seeks signatories to an open letter calling for policy makers to prioritize access to care and affordable treatment options for patients. We have developed a social media toolkit for your use with messages, social cards, videos and a calendar indicating when to publish the social posts. We encourage you to be part of this coordinated community-wide campaign that runs from March 11 - April 5, 2024.
Of course, none of what GlobalSkin does can be done without YOU! Your participation is paramount to GlobalSkin having a strong, inclusive, and impactful voice. I encourage you to engage with us, get involved in our programs, or join a committee. GlobalSkin’s Board elections will be taking place starting June 3rd and I look forward to seeing you online at our Annual General Meeting on June 19th.
Your voice, together with the voices of your colleagues around the globe, is essential in promoting patient-centric healthcare with decision-makers to improve the lives of those living with dermatological conditions worldwide. Together, we can make it happen!
Gratefully,
Marc Yale
GlobalSkin Board President