European Public Health News * President's column * EUPHA office column * Message from the WHO Regional Director for Europe: gender-based violence against women--addressing a pervasive problem * Shedding light on cross-border healthcare * Seventh European Public Health Conference--'Mind the gap: reducing inequalities in health and health care'

Abstract

This European public health news is all about care. Ricciardi is concerned with a lack of care for public health research in the European Commission’s work plan for Research 2014–15. Zeegers Paget shows that the European Public Health Association (EUPHA)’s activities in 2013 demonstrate care and concern for European public health. Jakab discusses the critical role for the health care sector in tackling violence against women. And Testori-Coggi reflects on the recently implemented Directive on Cross-Border Health Care that provides more rights to patients. # President's column {#article-title-2} The underlying epidemic of non-communicable diseases in Europe is caused by a wide range of factors, including poverty, inequality, urban design and lack of affordable public transport, as well as individual lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise, tobacco and alcohol and genetic factors. The recent Vienna declaration of the WHO Ministerial Conference on Nutrition and Non communicable Diseases (July 2013) argues that most premature deaths from non-communicable diseases could be prevented if appropriate policies were adopted in sectors other than health, rather than trying to tackle the problem through health policy alone. The European Public Health Association (EUPHA) together with the International Epidemiological Association (IEA), the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) and the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) have written to the European Commissioner for Research (Joint statement of the public health associations of Europe (IEA, ISEE and EUPHA) on the health research programme 2014–15 (Horizon 2020) proposed by the European Commission.) to express their concern about the balance of priorities and to ask to consider a revision of the work programme to effectively focus on health needs in Europe to the major determinants of health and disease in the European population. Our associations think that the proposed health research programme does not address adequately major public health problems of the European population and major …