EUSPR Conference

Very often prevention professionals (both researchers and practitioners) are working within their own walls. Working within these walls feels comfortable. It is a known territory and a known network. However, looking over the wall to reach for other health domains can be inspiring for own work. Even more important, mutual learning and partnership beyond own networks may avoid reinventing the wheel. One may hypothesize that evidence from one field could be transferred into another field, and this possibility should be evaluated. Not to forget, looking over the wall can result in interesting partnerships with innovative projects. Therefore, this year’s conference will put a stronger emphasis on the looking beyond prevention science to other disciplines, like marketing, user-centred design or communication. In fact, too many resources are spent on inefficient communication. We need to improve the reach of neglected target audiences, and to explore the digital environment including its novel perspectives on curiosity, affiliation, masking and substitution mechanisms.

This year’s conference Looking over the Walls embraces a multidisciplinary perspective, and welcomes presentations on multicomponent programs, or on strategies for the modification of multiple risk behaviors.

Policies, programs and projects targeting multiple risk factors would affect multiple behaviors and conditions and could have a stronger impact. Communicating with experts in other areas facilitates translation of research and can contribute to a more holistic approach. Furthermore, looking over the walls in research and practice may result in more cost effectiveness, which is also interesting for policymakers.

We encourage participants to share their experiences on:

• Examples of projects working on a broad spectrum of risk behaviours
• Approaches and components that may effectively tackle different risk behaviours
• Unconventional sectors to bridge with when “looking over the walls”
• Changes in professional skills that will be necessary in research, policy-making and practices when aiming for a cross-disciplinary and inter-sectorial approach to prevention

Abstracts can be submitted here.