Background

According to World Health Organization one in four children in the world is allergic. However, as allergy is a rarely known disease, especially in Turkey, allergic children face several difficulties and discrimination in their educational period and in social life. Early diagnosis and following medical arrangements can improve life quality of children and can decrease absenteeism in school, hospitalization, expenditure of health system and even mortality. For that reason, people who take care of children should be informed on allergy and their access to information should be facilitated.

Project Goals

• Patient representatives will be selected from 12 different cities and needs assessment will be conducted.
• According to result of the needs assessment, training content will be determined.
• 60 training videos will be prepared and published on digital platform.
• Risk and evaluation tests and booklets will be prepared along with videos.
• A closing workshop will be held, and a final report will be published to share project experiences. 

Project Results

• A need assessment was held through patient representatives selected from 21 cities of Turkey and video topics were determined accordingly.
• 50 training videos with lectures and exercises were prepared in categories such as food allergies, respiratory allergies, and skin allergies. Videos were shared though Academy on Living with Allergy website with Turkish and English subtitles and Turkish Sign Language translation.
• The project was launched at the IBS Mother Baby Child Fair and reached 600 people.
• 85,869 people accessed the Life with Allergy Academy website. 11,532 people took a graduation certificate by participating in the evaluation test in the Academy.
• ‘Coronavirus Information Booklet’ was prepared for people at risk such as asthma or allergic rhinitis patients. The booklet was downloaded by 14,000 people.
• During the pandemic 3,600 people were reached with three Instagram live broadcasts on allergy.

Testimonials

“There is only one pediatric allergy specialist in our city, so we had difficulty getting accurate information at any time we wanted. This Academy is like a compass to us. We now have a clearer picture about what we need to do for treatment.” A Patient’s Relative from Diyarbakır

“I can breathe again with the Academy on Living with Allergy. I was out of breath raising my allergic son, who is six years old now, and telling my inner circle about how serious the disease was, and I unfortunately saw they did not take it seriously. We now have a platform that can train both my family and my circles!” A Patient’s Relative from Antalya