In 2022, EFA continued investing in its digital communication tools to adapt to the ongoing need for virtual settings for advocacy and activities, through online campaigns for international days to improving the website as an information source.
EFA also worked on different ways to promote our work and evidence, such as specific social media hashtags and QR codes underpinning our work, more coordination with members and partners on key dates and opportunities.
EFA’s website: efanet.org
EFA’s website continued to be our primary tool to inform our public and target audiences. The website is updated frequently with original EFA content around our work pillars INFORM | PREVENT | CARE, informing about the many activities we have conducted on policy and advocacy, projects, events and membership. In 2022, efanet.org reached 64,635 page visits, a 12.06% increase compared to 2021.
Throughout 2022, EFA started working on a full internal review of the permanent content of the website to present issues affecting allergy and airways disease patients in lay language. The new narratives will be published throughout 2023 and aim at humanising the scientific data that should be at the steering wheel of policy making.
The EFA team also worked in centralising advocacy materials by disease area and project through internal Efanet.org hubs, such as for the Atopic Eczema Consensus Europe project, the DIG_IT project and the World Atopic Eczema Day.
EFA’s newsletter
EFA’s newsletter continued to be sent quarterly in 2022 to over 500 recipients and providing them with in-depth analysis and reports of our work throughout the year. Our four newsletters got an 62.8% opening rate and 17.17% average opening rate.
EFA social media channels
We posted timely and adapted content on our social media channels: Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook. EFA’s Twitter follower based increased by around 100 accounts in 2022, with high-level followers and supporters from WHO and EU institutions. Our organic posts got an average of 4% engagement rate on social media.
On LinkedIn, EFA increased its followers by 30%, and is followed by a wide range of professional profiles active in a many European countries.
Recordings of EFA’s project activities such as the capacity building trainings and events at the European Parliament, were posted to EFA’s YouTube page.
World Atopic Eczema Day
In 2022 we organised the World Atopic Eczema Day messaging together with our Members and partners GlobalSkin. Under the theme “Inside atopic eczema”, EFA explored five major burdens of the disease: the burden of extreme physical pain and itch, burden on families and caregivers, burden on finances, burden on mental health, and burden of daily management.
EFA and GlobalSkin developed well ahead of the day a toolkit for patient organisations and individuals to adapt for their own campaigns. The toolkit and materials were translated into English, French, Spanish, Serbian and Turkish.
Atopic eczema is much more than a skin disease, it affects the whole body of the patients, their life and their energy to face life. Often dismissed as “just a skin condition,” patients’ needs are too often not addressed in a supportive and timely manner. They are also left feeling alone and isolated as they struggle to manage their condition alongside their lives.
Through the #AtopicalLives photoseries, we travelled to four European countries to portray the burden of atopic eczema on patients and show the similarities and differences among patients in Europe.
We thank wholeheartedly the 19 patients and their carers, who chose to contribute to the atopic eczema community in 2018 and 2022 by welcoming us to their lives in their nine different countries. Our thanks to for her sensitivity and her talented eye to capture the beauty of life. Special thanks to our EFA Members in Serbia, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey for their collaboration in this project, and to the photographer Lurdes R. Basolí.
