This World Digestive Health Day, WGO raises awareness of the 2022 theme entitled Colorectal Cancer Prevention: Getting Back on Track.
MILWAUKEE, May 4, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Every 29 May, the World Gastroenterology Organisation (WGO) celebrates World Digestive Health Day (WDHD) and initiates a worldwide public health campaign that focuses on a particular digestive or liver disorder in order to increase awareness of prevention, prevalence, diagnosis, management, and treatment of the disease or disorder worldwide.
This World Digestive Health Day, WGO raises awareness of the 2022 theme entitled Colorectal Cancer Prevention: Getting Back on Track. This impactful campaign will harness the collective power of individuals, organizations, and partners to improve digestive health worldwide. To support this campaign, WGO will launch a live webinar event in June 2022, featuring expert speakers from across the world. Registration will open soon on the WDHD website.
About This Year's Theme
Led by Co-Chairs Profs. Aasma Shaukat (United States) and Michal Kaminski (Poland), the goal for WDHD 2022 is to raise awareness of the importance of colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. CRC is the second leading cause of cancer-related death in the world. When detected in the preclinical stages, CRC tends to be localized and often curable with surgical resection with an excellent prognosis.
In the last decade, studies have highlighted a worrisome increase in CRC incidence among younger individuals. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted CRC screening programs and created a backlog of endoscopy procedures across the world. Now more than ever is the need to understand the recent epidemiologic trends and risk factors for CRC as well as to resume and optimize our CRC screening efforts.
By increasing worldwide awareness of the risk factors of CRC, benefits of screening, and practical tools to implement CRC screening programs, we can affect overall human health across the globe, in particular among low- and middle-resource countries. The WGO global network of WGO member societies, partners, and sponsors is ideal for raising the level of awareness.
Through a multi-faceted WDHD 2022 campaign, WGO seeks to:
- Raise awareness of the global burden of colorectal cancer and the effectiveness of screening
- Provide gastroenterologists, their patients, and the lay public with an understanding of important findings from the latest basic and clinical research on the changing epidemiology and risk factors for colorectal cancer
- Develop educational and training materials on key facts about dietary, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can reduce the risk of colorectal cancer
- Stimulate international collaborations that foster education, research, and training on the various modalities for colorectal cancer screening and their comparative effectiveness
- Update health care practitioners and the public on the implementation approaches to building effective and resource-efficient colorectal cancer screening programs
WGO members will provide global perspectives and expertise on the progress of CRC prevention efforts around the world, guiding the course of the campaign and the development of educational and training materials.
Get Involved
Join WGO by organizing an event of your own! Past events organized have included lectures, virtual sessions, webinars, podcasts, infographics, press conferences, symposia, walkathons, patient awareness camps, creating a World Digestive Health Week, and much more. We invite you to take action and celebrate!
Additionally, webpages devoted to the WDHD campaign have been developed, which consist of tools and resources for the healthcare professional and general public. We invite you to download the campaign toolkit, available on the WDHD website. Stay connected with us on social media by using the hashtags #WDHD2022, #ColorectalCancer, and #ColonCancer.
About World Digestive Health Day
The first World Digestive Health Day was held on 29 May 2005. Since then, WGO annually celebrates World Digestive Health Day by initiating a worldwide public health campaign through its 117 WGO Member Societies which reach over 60,000 individuals worldwide, WGO Training Centers, Regional Affiliate Associations, and other WGO global partners. Each year focuses upon a particular digestive disease or disorder in order to increase general public awareness of prevention, prevalence, diagnosis, management, and treatment of the disease or disorder.
About the World Gastroenterology Organisation
Formed in 1935 and incorporated in 1958, the World Gastroenterology Organisation is a federation of 117 member societies and 4 regional associations of gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy, and other related disciplines, representing over 60,000 individuals worldwide, focusing on the improvement of standards in gastroenterology training and education on a global scale. WGO's mission is to promote, to the general public and healthcare professional alike, an awareness of the worldwide prevalence and optimal care of gastrointestinal and liver disorders, and to improve care of these disorders, through the provision of high quality, accessible, and independent education and training.
To learn more about the WDHD 2022 campaign, please visit wdhd.worldgastroenterology.org and follow the #WDHD2022 hashtag on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Media Contact
Zach Blevins, Sr. Development and Communications Manager, World Gastroenterology Organisation, +1 414-918-9798, [email protected]
SOURCE World Gastroenterology Organisation
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