In this episode, host Jiři Svoboda is pleased to welcome Dr. Ernest Groman for the second time in the EuroHealth Podcast to discuss the progresses made in tackling tobacco addiction. We discuss different approach to regulation, taxation, and strategies to reduce the harm caused by smoking. Giving a critical assessment of the policymakers’ approach to restriction, Dr. Groman provides insights into how emerging products, such as e-cigarettes, can play a role in reducing smoking prevalence… if regu...
Apr 29, 2025•37 min•Season 3Ep. 9
Struggling with illnesses put patients on a long, and sometimes hard, path to healing. Struggling with mental illnesses, which are often invisible and burdened with stigma, brings unexpected obstacles on patients’ journeys and experiences. How can their involvement in care help their recovery? We asked Peter Keri, president of GAMIAN-Europe, a prominent voice for patients struggling with their mental health in Europe. People struggling with mental illnesses are significantly burdened in their he...
Feb 20, 2025•38 min•Season 3Ep. 8
It’s a wrap! 2024 came to an end, and it’s been quite a year for European health policies. From the shift in focus to cardiovascular diseases to innovative approaches in the treatment of addictions, from holistic approaches in the treatment of mental health disorders to improving the conditions of patients through advocacy, the Euro Health Podcast was there to cover the developments in the European health policy landscape for you. We had the pleasure to welcome distinguished guests - policymaker...
Dec 31, 2024•12 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Did you know that addictions are mental health disorders? Despite the link not being obvious at first glance, it is clear for scientists and medical professionals: people suffering from substance use disorders should be treated first and foremost as psychiatric patients. Patients, however, still suffer from stigma from the general population, especially when it comes to people who consume drugs, and from being a low priority on the policymakers’ agenda. We discussed it with Dr. Gabriele Fischer,...
Nov 13, 2024•30 min•Season 3Ep. 6
One of the world’s leading scientific hubs in the field of drugs and addiction is the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drugs Addictions (EMCDDA), which this summer acquired a new mandate and name, becoming the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA). We asked Dr. Jane Mounteney, Head of the Public Health Union of the Agency, to guide us through this change. The EMCDDA was born in the 1990s to face a health emergency in Europe, the heroine and HIV epidemics. Thanks to its incessant and high-qu...
Oct 16, 2024•34 min•Season 3Ep. 5
The Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the EU (HUPRES) is steering the European Union boat to face present and future challenges for the health of Europeans. We had the chance to discuss them in a conversation with Dr. Judit Bidló, Hungarian Deputy State Secretary for the Professional Management of Health at the Ministry of the Interior, to dive deep into the HUPRES health agenda. Every six months, one of the EU Member States takes control of the Presidency of the Council of the EU, one of t...
Sep 20, 2024•32 min•Season 3Ep. 4
How rare are rare diseases? We asked Dimitrios Athanasiou, a prominent rare diseases patient advocate, president of Rare Diseases Greece and founder of 95 Rare Alliance Greece, and member of the Patients and Consumers Working Party in the European Medicines Agency. In this episode, Mr. Athanasiou reveals that what we think we know about rare diseases is just the tip of the iceberg. Not only do rare diseases affect a far larger number of people than we might imagine, but there is also much more c...
Aug 22, 2024•38 min•Season 3Ep. 3
For this episode of the Euro Health Podcast, we had the honour of welcoming Philippe Roux, Acting Director for ‘Public Health, Cancer and Health Security’ Unit, and Head of Unit for ‘Cancer, Health in all Policies’ at the European Commission Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE), to have a conversation around the EU’s response to cancer. In the past five years, the fight against cancer has been highly prioritised by the European institutions: both the European Commission and ...
Jul 04, 2024•24 min•Season 3Ep. 2
The 3rd season of the Euro Health Podcast kicks off with a very distinguished guest: Viktor Mravčík, Head of Science at the Institute for Rational Addiction Policies (IRAP) and Advisor to the Czech National Drug Coordinator. MUDr. Mravčík has a long career in the development of drug policies in his home county, the Czech Republic. We discusses with him the evolution of the approach towards the monitoring and the management of drugs and addiction, from the perspective of a country that pioneered ...
Jun 06, 2024•41 min•Season 3Ep. 1
For the 12th and final episode of the 2nd season of the Euro Health Podcast, we invited Dr. Charlotte De Kock, postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University, who specializes in drug treatment for people with a migrant background in Belgium and the European Union. Focusing on drug policy, we opened the discussion on the impact of recent international crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine on mental health and substance abuse. Mental health and substance use disorders are co-occ...
Jan 03, 2024•31 min•Season 2Ep. 12
In this episode of the Euro Health Podcast, we discuss with MEP Tomislav Sokol the achievements of the European Parliament in the area of public health over the past four years, and the key priorities for the term to come, following the parliamentary elections next year. Health has been a priority for the European Union during the current term, due to the number of crises the EU had to face and still is facing, from the Covid-19 pandemic to the subsequent aggravation of the mental state of Europ...
Oct 09, 2023•23 min•Season 2Ep. 11
In the 10th episode of the 2nd season of the Euro Health Podcast, we explored the perception of risk in society and its implications for public health policies. Our guest, Dr. David Eberhard, talked about a “national panic syndrome” in his book “In the land of Security Junkies”. As society gets safer, people increasingly demand to be protected from even mundane risks and become more mentally vulnerable to the normally occurring hazards of life, developing anxiety and depression. In addition, Dr....
Sep 05, 2023•33 min•Season 2Ep. 10
A new episode of the Euro Health podcast discusses dual disorders, which are a combination of mental disorders and substance addiction. Around half of the people who suffer from a mental disorder will also have a substance use disorder at some point in their lives. In this episode, Dr José Martínez Raga, Vice-President of the Spanish Society of Dual Disorders explains this diagnosis and discusses how dual disorders relate to the mental health and addiction debate. He also touches upon the ways i...
Jun 29, 2023•22 min•Season 2Ep. 9
#08 David Zaruk - EURO HEALTH Podcast The guest on the eighth episode of the second series of the Euro Health podcast is David Zaruk. As a member of the team that founded GreenFacts to promote the wider use of evidence-based decision-making in the EU on environmental and health issues, he has been working on the topic of risk and science communications for many years. What was the path to his current profession and why did he choose this topic? David Zaruk says the reason was to make scientific ...
May 31, 2023•43 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Is it possible to draw a link between the socioeconomic status of individuals and addiction? This is one of the main questions addressed in a new episode of the Euro Health Podcast with Prof. Aileen O'Gorman whose work focuses on social inequalities in health and substance use disorders. In the podcast, Prof. Aileen O´Gorman explains why certain population groups are at a higher risk of getting into substance use problems. What explains the high number of drug-related deaths among young people? ...
May 17, 2023•46 min•Season 2Ep. 7
The guest on the 5th episode of the 2nd season of the Euro Health Podcast is Mika Salminen, the Director of Infectious Diseases at the Finnish Institute of Health and Welfare (THL). What does it mean to live with AIDS or HIV nowadays? Mika Salminen says that the situation has changed fundamentally over the last 25 years. Of course, the disease can cause serious health problems, but with the medicines that have been developed in those 25 years, an infected person can have a normal life without fe...
Feb 20, 2023•25 min•Season 2Ep. 5
“One of the most interesting half a year I have ever had.” With these words, Czech Deputy Minister of Health, Jakub Dvořáček begins the fourth episode of the Euro Health podcast episode on the topic of the Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU. Did the Czech politicians achieve everything they wanted to achieve in the field of the European Health Union? What were the main priorities of the Ministry of Health at the European level? Minister Dvořáček says that one of the key themes was oncolog...
Dec 22, 2022•33 min•Season 2Ep. 4
In the third episode of the Euro Health podcast speaks Theodora Calinescu, Project Manager at the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC). Are we successful in reducing the number of deaths on EU roads? Theodora Calinescu says Europe's roads are among the safest and the results have been steadily improving over the last 20 years, but the safety difference between EU Member states is wide. They can be described by the different approaches of a country depending on its road safety tradition. What...
Dec 05, 2022•27 min•Season 2Ep. 3
The guest on the second episode of the Euro Health podcast is Mat Southwell, one of the UK's leading harm reduction workers and Project executive at the European Network of People who use Drugs (EuroNPUD), an organization that represents people who use drugs in and around the EU and includes drug users as part of the solution and helps drug-focused groups in different countries. Mat Southwell has spoken openly about his own experiences of drug use in a past interview with the BBC. What impact di...
Nov 15, 2022•21 min•Season 2Ep. 2
How can people’s live be improved? This is the key question and goal for Dianova International, an NGO with 35 years of experience in that regard. Dianova‘s main fields of work are prevention and treatment of addiction. The organisation provides residential and outpatient programs and services on the ground. Dianova works at the advocacy level at international forums and organizations dealing with drug policies, health as well as human rights. To date, Dianova focuses on helping people in 19 cou...
Oct 19, 2022•30 min•Season 2Ep. 1
The new episode – and final episode of the first season – of the Euro Health Podcast focuses on the creation of the Special Committee on Beating Cancer (EP BECA) of the European Parliament, which is considered as real milestone in health policy. In February 2021, the Commission adopted Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan, a communication recommending EU Member States to strengthen Europe's resilience to the insidious disease - cancer. The Commission’s recommendations touched upon many sectors including...
Sep 05, 2022•18 min•Season 1Ep. 12
For its 11th episode, Euro Health Podcast welcomed Aleš Rod, Research Director at the Center for Economic and Market Analyses (CETA) based in the Czech Republic since 2013. What is CETA and what are its general activities? Also, since the beginning of the pandemic, interest in health policy has increased significantly. What are Aleš Rod’s activities on health-related matters? What role does CETA play in cancer prevention? Check out the new episode where you willl find the answers to these questi...
Apr 29, 2022•22 min•Season 1Ep. 11
It is now more than two years since the global Covid-19 pandemic was declared. Time has come to take stock on how the very existence of covid has affected people in the world. What kind of impact did Covid-19 have on things like diet behaviors, cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption? Why women and younger people’s mental health was more affected by lockdowns? Did having a pet help people during lockdowns? You will find these and other questions in the new Euro Health podcast episode with Dimi...
Mar 31, 2022•31 min•Season 1Ep. 10
When will the pandemic end?“ „Well I am sorry I forgot my crystal ball.“ These sentences are opening the 9th Episode of Euro Health Podcast with Peter Piot. It is not possible to fully predict the future, but we can be slightly optimistic on the development of the COVID-19 virus. It is not the end of the pandemic, but with Omicron variant we can expect better times. But what will our future look like? Is there going to be some „new normal“? How should we look at the measures for the future? Will...
Feb 09, 2022•45 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Topic number one is the new coronavirus mutation called omicron. What this variant will mean for us? Will it mean different regulations? Do current vaccine work for new omicron variant? How is the situation with vaccination in Poland? What would Prof. Fal say to the antivaxers? 🗣SPEAKER Professor Andrzej Mariusz Fal was born in Wroclaw, Poland. He graduated from the medi-cal University in 1988, and from the University of Economics in 1996. He holds a degree in allergology, internal medicine and...
Dec 06, 2021•42 min•Season 1Ep. 8
What is the EP Special Committee on Beating Cancer? What were the main priorities of MEP Ondrej Knotek and Renew Europe in the BECA Report? What to expect in the BECA Report on topics such as tobacco prevention? 🗣SPEAKER Ondřej Knotek is a Czech Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for ANO 2011, as part of the Renew Europe Group. He is serving his first term at the European Parliament following his election in May 2019. Knotek holds degrees from the Czech Technical University and the Institu...
Dec 02, 2021•19 min•Season 1Ep. 7
Is harm reduction policy applicable for children? How to find a proper limit to protect our children? How was addiction policy influenced by pandemic? Wich countries are the most inspiring in the area of drug policy? What is YODA and how it contributes to effective development of addiction policy? 🗣SPEAKER Ms. Iga Jeziorska studied social prevention and resocialisation in Poland and moved to Hungary in 2013. She is currently a PhD candidate at the Institute of Economic and Public Policy of the ...
Nov 22, 2021•51 min•Season 1Ep. 6
What are the key topics of the 5th European Harm Reduction Conference that took place in Prague in November? What is the one thing Ms. Schiffer wants people to learn about harm reduction during the conference? How people who use drugs can help with solutions in harm reduction? Are there some major changes in thinking in Europe about harm reduction? How people that use drugs have changed in general? 🗣SPEAKER Ms. Katrin Schiffer studied social work in Germany and moved to the Netherlands in 1994....
Nov 16, 2021•49 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Why do people start smoking in these days, when it is no longer popular as in the past? What are the main reasons why people start smoking? Should we remove nicotine from society, or it would be replaced with something else or worse? Is it possible to achieve nicotine free world? How would society respond to the ban on tobacco products? 🗣SPEAKER Dr Ernest Groman is from Vienna, Austria, and he was born in 1969. He completed his medical school studies 1997. Already at this time dr Groman was ver...
Nov 01, 2021•39 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Which EU member states have rational approach towards drugs and addiction policy? Is it possible to eradicate addictions? What is Germany’s National Drugs and Addictions Policy about? Should there be a coherent and comprehensive European approach towards drugs and addictions? 🗣SPEAKER Heino Stöver is a social scientist, PhD and Professor of Social Scientific Addiction Research at the Faculty of Health and Social Work of the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences in Germany.He is the president...
Aug 19, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 2
