September 2021

GlobalSkin will hold its 2021 Annual General Meeting (AGM) on September 29, at 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM (EST) / 17:00 - 18:30 (CET). 

We invite Members, Stakeholders and Partners to join us to learn about the successes 
GlobalSkin has achieved this past year and about our exciting future initiatives. At the meeting we will also profile the 2021 Board of Directors Election Candidates and outline the election process for this year. GlobalSkin Members can log into their Members Only account to view all AGM related documents prior to the meeting.   

We are thrilled to report that we have an approved Pilot version of the Patient Reported Impact of Dermatological Diseases (PRIDD) measure which consists of 22 questions derived directly from patients through a scientifically rigorous process. Having just completed the validation of the Pilot PRIDD measure through cognitive testing interviews with patients, psychometric testing will begin with patients around the world in November. We will be reaching out to select patient organizations across a broad cross-section of diseases and regions in the final months of 2021 and Q2 2022 to encourage their patients to answer questionnaires that will allow researchers to test how PRIDD performs and finalize scoring.

Join us for our upcoming webinar, "Changing the Way the World Sees Dermatology Through the GRIDD Project", taking place on September 22 at 10:30 - 11:30 (EDT) | 16:30 - 17:30 (CEST)*. This event is being co-hosted by GlobalSkin and the International League of Dermatological Societies (ILDS). 
 
Our expert presenters will be Jennifer Austin, GlobalSkin, CEO (Interim), and Rachael Pattinson, GRIDD Researcher, PhD Candidate, Cardiff University. We will also be joined by Bill McCue, patient leader and founder of the PRP Alliance and Dr. Ramesh Bhat, Board Member of the International League of the Dermatological Societies (ILDS) and the Vice-Chair of the ILDS Patients’ Organisations Working Group (POWG).  Learn more about the GRIDD project and the role of patient organizations and physicians in Phase 4 - Psychometric Testing of PRIDD, taking place in November.  

Check out a recent article published on the ILDS website about GRIDD. 

World Atopic Eczema Day took place on September 14, 2021, thank you to all GlobalSkin Members and Partners who took part in this year’s campaign. We are thrilled with early analytics reporting which shows that this year’s campaign had more than 2,140,000 impressions/reach on Facebook, 851,000 impressions on Twitter, 77,000 on Instagram and 51,000 impressions on LinkedIn.

We are proud to share that GlobalSkin supported 22 Member organizations, located in 16 countries, through the 2021 World Atopic Eczema Day Fund. This direct financial assistance supported Member activities during this awareness day. We look forward to sharing a report about their amazing projects in coming weeks.  

The Atopic Eczema Community is participating in an Advocacy Alignment Workshop on Wednesday, October 6th. This important piece of the GlobalSkin Atopic Eczema Community 3-Year Strategic Plan will gather atopic eczema patient leader advocates and the team at GlobalSkin to prioritize global advocacy directives that align with our members’ national efforts to improve the lives of patient living with atopic eczema.

For more information on the Advocacy Alignment Program, please contact Stephanie Miller.

Following a series of multi-stakeholder roundtable discussions in 2020 and 2021, GlobalSkin will bring together dermatology stakeholders in October to discuss broad community collaboration to elevate the profile and understanding of dermatological diseases. GlobalSkin is proud to be showing leadership in this area and together with partners and stakeholders alike, is working towards building a global dermatology coalition – a key priority identified through the roundtable process. The upcoming meeting will serve as a launching pad wherein parameters and governance structure for a coalition will be proposed, allowing comment and dialogue, followed by a call to action for the organizations to go back to their respective Boards/leadership to seek approval to become founding members of the Global Dermatology Coalition. We look forward to sharing more about this new initiative as it continues to unfold.