Funding programme

EU4Health is the EU’s funding programme to deliver on EU health policy and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Call overview

This call aims to address mental health challenges in cancer patients and survivors, and their carers and families.

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Background

Every year around 2.7 million people living in the Union are diagnosed with cancer and the number of cancer survivors is growing every year with a continuous increase in 5-year survival rates for the most common cancer types in all countries. These improvements are driven by a number of factors, including effective prevention and screening programmes as well as advances in diagnostics and surgical techniques. The number of childhood cancer survivors is also expected to rise substantially in the years to come. While this is a reason for optimism, survivors, their families and carers can experience significant challenges. These challenges could often be avoided or mitigated by cooperation between health and social care systems, and as well as cooperation with employers. In this context, the focus should no longer be on ‘how long’ people live after diagnosis, but rather on ‘how well and how long’ they live. Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and the EU Mission on Cancer aim not only to ensure that cancer patients survive their illness, but that they live long, fulfilling lives, free rom discrimination and unfair obstacles. Cancer survivors face a number of common issues including unmet psychosocial needs, and issues related to rehabilitation, emotional distress, secondary cancers and tumour recurrence, including metastatic disease.

Read more in the call document

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Objectives

This action aims to address mental health challenges in cancer patients and survivors, and their carers and families.

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Activities that can be funded

Activities will include:

(i) systematic screening of the mental health status of cancer patients, their carers and families in order to identify persons at risk of developing mental health problems;

(ii) development of methodologies that can support the identification of patients, their carers and families, with risk factors for mental health challenges, and the piloting and further testing of such methodologies to assess their impact and transferability at EU level;

(iii) providing psychological and psychosocial support and targeted interventions for cancer patients, survivors, their carers and families in order to prevent long-term mental health consequences;

(iv) developing guidance and recommendations for professionals to ensure mental health aspects throughout the entire patient care pathway;

(v) provision of professional psychosocial support for children, adolescents and young adults with cancer.

Read more in the call document

This action aims to address mental health challenges in cancer patients and survivors, their families and informal carers27 and improve their quality of care and life by screening and identifying at risk individuals for mental health challenges, providing psychosocial support and developing guidelines to incorporate mental health care throughout the duration of the cancer pathway

Mental health care activities may include innovative and promising approaches (such as social prescription, role of sport and physical activity, healthy lifestyle) and should focus on vulnerable groups like children, young people and elderly.

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Expected impact

The expected results include the provision of psychological and psychosocial support to cancer patients/survivors, their families and informal carers and a series of targeted interventions. This action will contribute to reducing the risk of long-term mental health problems among cancer patients and survivors, as well as their careers and families.

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Type of applicants targeted

Civil society organisations (professional associations, patient organisations, foundations, NGOs and similar entities) with expertise in the field of mental health and cancer, academia and education establishments, research institutes, expert networks and established networks in the field of public health, and Member States’ authorities

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Consortium composition

Proposals must be submitted by a consortium of at least 3 applicants (beneficiaries; not affiliated entities), which complies with the following conditions:

• Minimum 3 entities from 3 different eligible countries;
• At least one NGO working in the field of cancer or mental health;
• At least one patient organisation working in the field of cancer or mental health;

This needs to be clearly mentioned in the proposal.

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Eligibility

In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:

+ be legal entities (public or private bodies)

+ be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:

• EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))
• eligible non-EU countries: listed EEA countries and countries associated to the EU4Health Programme or countries which are in ongoing negotiations for an association agreement and where the agreement enters into force before grant signature (list of participating countries)

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Funding available

EUR 8.000.000

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Duration

Expected duration of the project(s) in months: 36 months