Finalist
From Data to Policy Action: How Pfizer’s CTRL Cancer Partnership is Facilitating Policy Change to Improve Cancer Care in Central and Eastern Europe
Summary of work
Analysis of the cancer care landscape in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) reveals an alarming disparity between this region and its western counterparts. For patients there, this means lower care standards and Europe’s highest cancer mortality rates, compared with Northern, Southern and Western countries.
The CTRL Cancer Initiative strategy and engagement plan designed by our agency for Pfizer Oncology supports the development of National Cancer Control Plans (NCCPs) and policies in CEE. Our 16 evidence-based CTRL Cancer Country Dashboards present unique analysis on cancer care and policies feeding into policy engagement actions, including: CTRL Cancer Summit; policy interactions and knowledge sharing between countries; workshops and capacity building; and media engagement. This is an innovative, multi-stakeholder partnership of cancer care professionals, clinicians and patient organisations, guided by a board of influential international researchers and academics to ensure maximum relevance to national needs.
Ukrainian partners demonstrated the first significant outcome of this initiative in February 2020. They applied the CTRL Cancer approach for their National Cancer Policy Forum (2020), that encouraged a vote in Parliament to develop an NCCP with focus on screening programmes (currently not available in Ukraine) and unlock funds for its implementation in 2021.
Judges’ comments
This was an impressive and ambitious programme with really strong implementation. The scale of the programme demands acknowledgement and it was no small feat to get it meaningfully recognised in each of the various markets. The detailed dashboard was impressive and clearly helped expedite the programme with a range of stakeholders in different countries.
