Dr. Monés presents the Quit Smoking with Barça initiative in Brussels

The Director of the Institut de la Màcula participates in the Fourth Edition of the “EU Health Prize for Journalists”

The awards ceremony for the best articles on health published in Europe in 2012 is to be held in Brussels on Tuesday, 29 January. 394 journalists from the 27 EU member states have presented over 550 pieces, from which 26 finalists have been selected.

The winners will be chosen at a ceremony to be held in Brussels on Tuesday, 29 January and boasting the participation of Dr. Monés to explain “Quit Smoking with Barça”, an innovative campaign resulting from a partnership between the European Commission and FC Barcelona aimed at helping the football club's supporters throughout the world to give up.

The 70 journalists attending will hear Dr. Monés explain FC Barcelona's anti-smoking initiative, one of the most successful ideas in the public health campaigns of the past year. In this video, Barcelona's Director of Medical Services talks about the project's general features.

Therapy dogs

Among the journalists competing for prizes is Melisa Tuya Sánchez, a Spaniard who reached the final with the article “Medical alert dogs for life for diabetic and autistic persons”. Her article explains an initiative by the Bocalán Foundation to train the first three dogs in Spain to help those with diabetes. The Foundation also trains dogs to assist autistic children, and thus prevent escape behaviour and accidents as well as improve their sleep patterns.

Melisa is specialised in science and technology journalism and is editor-in-chief of www.20minutos.es

Recognition for journalism

The European Commission organises the EU Health Prize for Journalists with the aim of recognising those journalists whose work significantly helps to inform the general public about the public health topics included in the campaign "Europe for Patients".

The first edition was held in 2009. Ben Hirschler and Kate Kelland from the United Kingdom were last year's winners with their article “When drugs don’t work”, which focussed on antimicrobial resistance and was published by Reuters. This year, there will be a special prize for the promoting of smoking cessation, one of the biggest health problems faced by European citizens.