EUthyroid Project successfully launched

EUthyroid Kick-off Meeting was held on 7-9 September 2015 in Vienna, Austria

The EUthyroid Kick-off Meeting took place in Vienna, Austria, and was attended by representatives of 32 partners from 27 countries. The meeting was dedicated to the launch of the project and discussions on partners’ responsibilities and relationships in the project, the Work Programmes and the strategies that need to be developed and implemented for successful project implementation. The General Assembly held adjacent to the meeting, was held to decide on important topics for the project’s governance.

Besides the regular agenda topics, the need for national iodine status studies was discussed, and it was recommended to follow the WHO recommendations to conduct national iodine status study every two to three years.

The meeting was concluded with the closing remarks from the chairman Henry Volzke.

EUthyroid is the first pan-European initiative to take on the challenge of investigating the iodine intake of the European population. This should provide the basis to develop appropriate measures for harmonising and improving the iodine intake in Europe in cooperation with national authorities.

The network performs research into the current situation regarding iodine intake and the health consequences of iodine deficiency in the countries involved. A particular focus will be placed on pregnant women and the potential impact of iodine deficiency on the intellectual development of the child. These aims will be accomplished through the following objectives.

• Collection of standardised data on the iodine intake of the population
• Comparison of national measures and dietary habits
• Harmonisation and standardisation of data collection
• Analysis of the cost-benefit ratio of existing prevention programmes
• Development of appropriate measures towards an improved and unified iodine intake
• Analysis of three mother-child studies from regions with different iodine intake

Factsheet download (Macedonian)
Factsheet download (English)
More information about the EUthyroid project can be found at http://euthyroid.eu/.