World Psoriasis Day 2021 - Puerto Rico

Every year APAPP celebrates a significant activity of World Psoriasis Day. The activity has a significant impact on the community and patients. Our main objectives are education and advocacy. Our focus this year was the theme UNITED.

This year, our WPD activities were celebrated to demonstrate that the patients and communities need to be united to achieve their well-being and educate their related individuals.

HOW APAPP IMPLEMENT THE UNITED THEME

The theme UNITED had a crucial role in our celebration. We worked with the pandemic challenges and followed the restrictions. To implement the theme be UNITED with the community, we had the opportunity to make alliances with the Puerto Rico Dermatology Society, Pharmaceuticals, Doctors, and other organizations. We also United patients and the community to educate and reach professionals and treatments. Reach some government agencies to unite them with our patients and community. Unite the world with us, showing our efforts to educate and help psoriasis patients, to be heard, to know about psoriasis, to know about the psoriasis associations, to show that we need to be united to obtain results and achieve the goals of psoriasis patient's associations

APAPP WPD UNITED EVENTS/ GOALS REACHED/ IMPACT

To achieve our goal to be UNITED, we unite a group of approximately 100 assistants in our WPD Educational Activity.

That educational activity had a whole day conferences program, including Dermatologists, a Rheumatologist, a Psychiatrist, a Researcher, a Psychologist, a Nutritionist, a Lawyer, and the Puerto Rico Patient Advocate. The educational activity was performed simultaneously live on our Facebook and YouTube pages. The conferences and virtual collaborators booths were also available for a month on APAPP webpage. That allowed patients and the community to access the whole program virtually.

Our association also had the opportunity to unite our patients with the government. We had at our WPD celebration the presence of the Sub Secretary of Health, Dr. Moises Ramírez. At our activity, Dr. Ramirez brought the Governor Proclamation of World Psoriasis Day 2021 to our audience.

Another success of uniting our efforts with government forces was that the governor of Puerto Rico submitted to congress two laws. The first one was a project about Psoriasis Patient's Rights and Access to treatments, and the second one the official celebration of World Psoriasis Day every year in Puerto Rico. Both projects wait for the approval of the House of Representatives and the Senate of Puerto Rico.

Continuing with the WPD celebration and being UNITED with the community, APAPP performs one educational activity and illuminates Puerto Rican official buildings for two nights, October 28 and 29. The illuminated buildings were the governor's house "La Fortaleza," the "Pedro Roselló Convention Center," and a big stadium. Coliseo José Miguel Agrelot”. That was possible due to Pharmaceuticals Companies arrangements with the Puerto Rican governor's Office and Puerto Rican Convention Center Offices.

To be UNITED with the community, one of our alliance collaborators, Behealth, simultaneously shows live interviews with our resources on their Facebook page to talk about psoriatic disease and laws projects.

To commemorate the UNITED theme, we had the idea to ask other international psoriasis associations representatives to record some words to talk about their work. Our purpose was to demonstrate that we are not alone as a group of people looking and fighting for a better quality of life for psoriasis patients.

Our vision was to BE UNITED to offer patients hope and the opportunity to share in person in an educational conference.

APAPP also had a media tour with education for patients in alliance with our dermatologist's consultants to achieve our goals. Also, I wrote an article about mental health in Psoriasis disease patients. A virtual newspaper published and the invitation for educational conference,

We are delighted with our results. More than 100 assistants attended our educational activity. On Facebook, more than 850 people access our conference videos.

Eleven newspapers published our article about mental health and psoriatic disease, including the most powerful.

APAPP gives eight radio and TV interviews about Psoriatic Disease and World Psoriasis Day. On two occasions, one of the most prestigious radio stations talked about Psoriatic Disease and WPD in their positive news in October. On Telemundo, one of the most seen TV stations, we had a report inside the news program. This report includes the participation of Betty Quintana, Secretary of APAPP as a patient, and Dra. Damaris Torres, Dermatologist, and Puerto Rico Dermatology Society. Three online newspapers published an article about the building illuminate's and the official Facebook page of the governor house "La Fortaleza" post an article about the event. APAPP board members participate in two virtual live programs. One health insurance invites APAPP for their programs to talk about Psoriatic disease and WPD. The Puerto Rican patient advocate office asks APAPP for their radio program.

Our feeling is a very successful media tour.

This WPD was historic for APAPP. Psoriatic Disease and World Psoriasis Day had an excellent projection throughout October in Puerto Rico.

We continue to search for the approval of the laws about Psoriasis patient's rights and World Psoriasis Day.

LESSON LEARNED

Be UNITED allowed us to expand our horizons and reach our goals with the help of others.