Food Allergy - a hard nut to crack

Food allergies have a significant impact not only on the life of food allergic patients but also on their families and social institutions, e.g. nurseries and schools. In addition, food allergy is associated with higher health care costs and subsequently substantial economic burden. Currently, 4% of the population are affected by food allergies; however, there is little effort for public outreach and urgent need for information. Public engagement from the applicants, e.g. Lange Nacht der Forschung, and clinical experience have highlighted that many food allergic patients do have limited knowledge about food allergy in general and often cannot distinguish between food allergy and food intolerance. Overall, awareness of food allergy, its development, and methods to prevent allergies is scarce. The present public outreach project is based on 3 FWF projects, which focus on the study of mechanisms and risk factors of food allergy as well as new therapeutic approaches for treatment of this disease. Using a project based homepage (www.nahrungsmittel-allergie.at) as the central communication platform, German-speaking people interested in the topic food allergy can get information on Evidence-based knowledge. Interactive workshops with games, puzzles, and presentation boards in nurseries and schools as well as for adults will be scheduled; in addition we will organize a walk-through gut to raise awareness in the world allergy week 2015. All these methods should have one common goal: to promote the gut, the organ highly involved in food allergies and the largest immune-organ in humans. Furthermore, we want to make our information accessible on facebook and as a video on youtube to catch the general public, also after project funding has finished. Using these platforms and events, we want to raise awareness and interest in food allergy, but also in research focusing on food allergy. A short stay in our lab for pupils should highlight research as a future job but should also show visitors the engagement and excitement of research in this field.

Food allergies have a significant impact not only on the life of food allergic patients but also on their families and care takers. In addition, food allergy is associated with higher health care costs and subsequently represents a substantial economic burden. The aim of the completed public outreach project was to provide scientifically profound information on mechanism, risk factors and therapeutic options for food allergies to the lay public and specifically also to affected patients based on the research focus of 3 underlying Austrian Science funds projects. Using a project homepage (www.meduniwien.ac.at/nahrungsmittelallergie) as the central communication platform, German-speaking people interested in the topic food allergy were provided with information based on consolidated knowledge. Interactive workshops with games, puzzles, and presentation boards in schools as well as for adults and the organization of an event with a walk-through gut model in association with the world day of immunology 2015 were used to raise public awareness. All these methods had one common goal: to promote the gut, the organ highly involved in food allergies and the largest immune- organ in humans. As all information remain accessible via the project homepage, as online videos and as information folders, we anticipate a continuous effect on the general public even after the project period. As a further aim lab traineeships were made available for school and university students to show the engagement and excitement of food allergy research and to highlight research as a future job.