The International Alliance of Dermatology Patient Organizations was invited to speak in Paris last month. IADPO’s ED—Operations, Jennifer Austin, gave a presentation in French to doctors, nurses, researchers, and also representatives of patient groups and the pharmaceutical industry at the Journées dermatologiques de Paris (JDP).
The audience included French and Francophone Dermatologists who were attending the Annual Scientific Conference of the French Society of Dermatology (SFD). The session focused on Objectif peau, a research project in France that mirrors the focus of IADPO and has recently completed an extensive survey of more than 16,000 French patients to look at the incidence of and impact of skin diseases, e.g., including psychosocial and the economic factors. The SFD also works with the leadership of patient organizations to host a Patient Organization Village at the JDP.
In her presentation, Jennifer shared the aims of IADPO, being founded upon the pillars of advocacy, research and support for skin patients around the world. She provided current GlobalSkin membership statistics and insight about the GRIDD patient-research project that is underway.
Jennifer concluded her speech by inviting delegates who have experience in calculating the WHO's DALY rankings to contact her to share insights and to help inform this important patient-led research. Before she left the room she already had one volunteer!
Medical professionals were also asked to spread the word about IADPO and our GRIDD project patient organizations and to their patients.
On a final note, before Jennifer left Europe, she also made a trip to Hamburg to meet with our lead researcher for our GRIDD project – Professor Dr. Matthias Augustin, University of Hamburg, Germany. This was an excellent planning session which focused on the research methodology and establishing milestones. To learn more about GRIDD, please visit our website at http://globalskin.org/what-we-do/research. And to learn more about Objectifs peau, click here.