Building a coherent European approach to NCD prevention: how three JACARDI deliverables support action

Cardiovascular diseases and diabetes remain among Europe’s most pressing public health challenges. Their prevention and management require more than isolated interventions: they call for evidence-based planning, structured and coordinated action across countries, health systems and EU-funded initiatives.

JACARDI brings together evidence, implementation guidance and European collaboration through three key outputs: the Context Analysis, the Methodological Framework, and the Action Plan on Synergies.

Together, they illustrate how evidence, methodology and collaboration can be combined into a coherent approach to sustainable public health action.

Context Analysis: from mapping gaps to guiding action in CVD and diabetes prevention

Without coordinated and effective action, cardiovascular disease and diabetes will continue to pose major public health challenges across Europe. To better understand the current landscape, the Context Analysis provides a comprehensive overview of how prevention and management are currently organised in European countries, highlighting key strengths, gaps, and opportunities across health systems.

Rather than a purely descriptive exercise, the analysis is designed to directly support action. It helps pilot teams tailor their interventions to country-specific needs, ensuring they are relevant, adaptable, and grounded in evidence. By strengthening the link between knowledge and implementation, it improves the potential impact and sustainability of pilot activities across Europe.

The analysis is the result of a collaborative process involving National Focal Points for Health from 32 European countries and technical experts from the JACARDI country representatives, ensuring broad coverage and comparability. It also integrates evidence from best practice sources and scientific literature to support the identification of effective and transferable approaches.

Overall, the Context Analysis provides a shared evidence base to guide more informed, equitable, and sustainable responses to cardiovascular diseases and diabetes across Europe.

Methodological Framework: guiding implementation across 143 pilots in 18 European countries

The Methodological Framework provides both a theoretical reference and a practical operational tool for JACARDI’s 143 pilot projects across Europe. It is designed to support a guided, systemic and monitored implementation approach, while allowing flexibility for pilot teams to adapt to national and local realities.

The JACARDI framework supports pilot teams throughout the entire implementation journey, from identifying challenges and designing context-sensitive interventions to monitoring progress, evaluating results, and planning for long-term sustainability. Rather than following a linear process, the framework promotes continuous learning, reflection, and adaptation, enabling interventions to evolve in response to emerging needs and evidence.

Two cross-cutting principles underpin all JACARDI activities: equity and sustainability. Through a dedicated equity approach, pilot teams are supported in addressing social determinants of health and reducing inequalities, ensuring that interventions respond to the needs of diverse populations and leave no one behind. This effort is reinforced through expert guidance and capacity-building activities designed to embed an equity perspective beyond the lifetime of the project. Sustainability is integrated from the outset, encouraging policy alignment, stakeholder engagement, and long-term planning to maximise impact beyond EU funding.

Another distinctive feature of the framework is its multidimensional assessment approach. All pilot projects assess their results across six outcome dimensions, including health outcomes, efficiency, and patient experience, providing a comprehensive understanding of their impact and potential for scale-up.

Action Plan on Synergies: strengthening impact through European collaboration

The Action Plan on Synergies broadens the perspective to the European level, highlighting the importance of synergies between EU-funded initiatives on non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The rationale is that isolated projects cannot fully address the complexity of NCDs, and that greater impact can be achieved by connecting initiatives, aligning efforts, and fostering collaboration across programmes. This is operationalised through a framework embedded in the EU4Health Programme, which aligns objectives, activities, and resources across JACARDI and nine Action Grants.

Collaboration is supported by governance mechanisms, joint meetings, and continuous dialogue. A structured mapping allowed partners to identify complementarities, avoid duplication, and design more coordinated actions to strengthen each project’s contribution. By sharing tools, methods, and experiences, participating projects improve their ability to address common challenges, fostering innovation and supporting the faster uptake of effective practices across countries, ultimately leading to shared learning, greater visibility, stronger sustainability, and more inclusive approaches.

Together, these three outputs show how JACARDI is turning evidence into implementation and collaboration into wider European impact. By combining contextual insights, practical guidance and structured synergies, they support public health action that is adaptable, transferable and sustainable over time.

Explore the full set of deliverables here.