Excellence in Patient Focus

Summary of work

Winner: by International Federation of Psoriasis Associations with support from Lucid

Psoriasis affects 125 million people worldwide. Sufferers are often stigmatised, feeling excluded, embarrassed and insecure. Under the Spotlight (UtS) is an innovative programme by the International Federation of Psoriasis Associations (IFPA) to develop a unique series of documentaries following people with psoriasis, exposing its impact on all aspects of life, raising awareness and supporting fellow sufferers.

Following the 2009 launch, UtS was successful but limited geographically to Europe. During mid 2011–2012, UtS evolved into a programme with global impact influencing multiple stakeholders. A clear implementation strategy was created to:

• Ensure UtS had a clear strategic vision to support unified international media campaigning
• Create a proactive UtS community driving for change through influencing policymakers and other key stakeholders
• Drive awareness-raising of UtS through all stakeholder groups in all continents.

UtS has been hugely successful! It has touched millions of people from all corners of the world. It has impacted patients, their families, healthcare professionals (HCPs), policymakers and the general public. The compelling content has motivated international policymakers to change their classification of psoriasis and World Psoriasis Day (WPD) will soon be an official World Health Day! UtS is truly changing the lives of people living with psoriasis.

Judges comments

This ambitious and effective globalisation programme successfully raised the profile of psoriasis, showing it to be a worldwide problem. Driven by excellent insight it was impressive in both ambition and scale and raised awareness of the deep emotional impact of this disease on sufferers. They did all the right things really well.