Who We Are

STRONG-AYA is a novel, interdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder European network to improve healthcare services, research and outcomes for adolescents and young adults with cancer.

These AYAs form a unique group and face age-specific issues:

• Infertility;
• Unemployment;
• Financial problems;
• Decreased quality of life due to cancer and its treatment.

Unlike dedicated healthcare and trials for pediatric cancer patients, AYA-specific healthcare services are scarce and vary across Europe.

AYAs are at the core of society and the economy, and they need access to age-adjusted and high-quality healthcare. AYA care and research will benefit from collection and pooling of patient-centred data and collaboration among all stakeholders:

• Patients;
• Healthcare professionals;
• Scientists;
• Policymakers.

Our consortium includes clinical and scientific leaders in AYA-care, data science and registries, The European Cancer Organisation, Youth Cancer Europe and the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), building on previous initiatives and EU grants, and merging expertise with innovation.

Within STRONG-AYA, we are setting up a value-based healthcare research ecosystem to develop data-driven, interactive policy and visualization tools that bring novel insights into AYA healthcare, in co-creation with all stakeholders including patients.