Chronic illnesses are rising in numbers and severity everywhere. The panel brings together perspectives about chronic illnesses such as public health institution´s concerns, patients' experiences and caregivers' standpoints, all collaborate on different levels for the improvement of people´s health.
Since life conditions are changing for many people in the world, technology advances and life expectancy raises continuously, chronic illnesses, from infectious and non-infectious diseases (multimorbidity) and the challenges to live with them are rising too. The panel wants to bring together different perspectives about chronic illnesses such as public health institution´s concerns, patients' experiences, caregivers' standpoints and technologies to help patients and professionals to deal with it. These groups of people/institutions collaborate to improve people´s health in many ways. Chronic Illnesses such as diabetes, heart diseases, Alzheimer, Parkinson and cancer force people to adjust their life in accord with their medical regimen. Educational programs are developed by public health services, self-help groups support individuals and their relatives and technologies such as tools of ambient assisted living make their contribution to improve people´s daily routine as well as their wellbeing even though they are not healthy any more. Medical anthropology offers the theories and methodologies to understand both the people's individualized illness experiences and also groups' or systems' actions and reactions to them. The panel invites colleagues working on a broad range of topics related to chronic diseases in different countries in order to have a cross-cultural perspective. In this sense, the panel aims examine the private and public dimensions of the chronic illness experience in different social spaces, such as the family, work, everyday life, and clinical settings. Also presentations about new methodological tools to deal for example with persons who have impaired perception or related issues are welcome.