Bringing European initiatives together to advance cancer literacy and reduce inequalities
On 14 October 2026, Carina Dantas from SHINE 2Europe represented CAREWAY as a speaker at the first Cancer Literacy Day, held in Brussels at the European Parliament. She contributed to the panel discussion “Improving Cancer Literacy for Organisations and Health Systems”, joining stakeholders committed to making cancer-related information more accessible, understandable and reliable for everyone. Taiane Abreu from SHINE 2Europe also attended the event.
The inaugural Cancer Literacy Day marked an important step towards building a stronger European movement around cancer literacy, recognising its role in informed decision-making, health equity, and cancer prevention and care.
CAREWAY’s participation highlighted the value of collaboration between European projects addressing cancer literacy from complementary perspectives. In particular, the event provided an opportunity to strengthen connections with CURTAIN, the project behind the Cancer Literacy Day initiative, which works to improve cancer literacy among citizens, patients, healthcare professionals, and organisations.
While the projects approach cancer literacy through different activities and target groups, they share a common ambition: ensuring that people can access, understand, assess and use trustworthy cancer information. Achieving this requires collaboration across sectors, attention to the different needs of communities, and sustained efforts to address inequalities in health information.
An important contribution of CAREWAY to this shared mission is its focus on the cultural adaptation of cancer literacy resources. Making information accessible involves more than translating content into different languages. Resources must also reflect the cultural contexts, needs, and experiences of the communities they aim to reach. This helps ensure that cancer information is relevant, meaningful, and accessible to diverse audiences.
Bringing initiatives such as CAREWAY and CURTAIN together creates opportunities to exchange knowledge, share experiences, and strengthen the collective impact of European efforts in this field. The first Cancer Literacy Day provided an important opportunity to raise the visibility of this shared mission and reinforce the need for coordinated action to make cancer information more accessible and meaningful throughout the cancer journey.
CAREWAY is pleased to have been part of this milestone and looks forward to continuing to build synergies with European initiatives working towards more equitable cancer literacy.
Together, we can help make reliable cancer information accessible to everyone.
