During the last meeting of the European Commission’s High level group on nutrition and physical activity on the 1st of June, a member of the Maltese Ministry for Health gave an overview of the forthcoming activities of the Maltese Government on childhood obesity, a thematic area which has been set...
During the informal Health Council meeting convened on the 18th of April, Member States committed to : Develop national plans for food product improvement to be ready by the end of 2016. Assess existing benchmarks for salt and saturated fats at national level. The next health Council meeting will take place...
On the 6th of April, the European Commission’s High Level Group on Nutrition and Physical activity held a meeting during which the UK Childhood Obesity and Food Policy and the French nutrition policy were presented, before the European Commission highlighted the latest developments of the...
On the occasion of the World Health Day 2016, which focused on beating diabetes, the Slovenian Ministry of Health and the National Assembly co-organised a consultation on diabetes in the country. Because the disease affects over 6% of the population in Slovenia, the Government has developed a national programme for the...
From May 21 to May 24, EKHA was pleased to take part in the 53rd Annual Congress of the European Renal Association – European Dialysis and Transplant Association (ERA-EDTA) held in Vienna; and join a multitude of stakeholders interested in kidney health to discuss the latest scientific developments in the...
On the 11th of April, ahead of the European Obesity Day (21st of May), ten Members of the European Parliament have launched a Written declaration on the recognition of obesity as a chronic disease. Led by MEP Dr. Alfred Sant (Malta, S&D group) and including MEP Giovanni La Via...
EU Commissioner for Health Vytenis Andriukaitis gave developments on the future EU regulation on trans fats in the scope of an exchange of views with Members of the European Parliament from the parliamentary Committee on environment, public health, and food safety (ENVI Committee) during the last Committee meeting on the...
“MOVING from DISEASE CARE TO HEALTH CARE - A paradigm shift that focuses on Prevention” On the 19th of April, the European Kidney Health Alliance organised its annual multi-stakeholder Forum, co-hosted by the MEP Group for Kidney Health. The event was the occasion to debate the need for an overhaul in healthcare...
On the 19th of April, EKHA attended the Chronic Disease conference organised by the European Commission "Towards better prevention and management of chronic diseases". This multi-stakeholder event, which attracted many actors of the European sphere but also players related to the health field at national level, was the...
On the 14th of April, the UK kidney community launched the first “UK Renal Research Stategy”, a comprehensive document identifying the main challenges, defining goals and providing recommendations on improving the health and life of kidney patients through fostering kidney research. It provides for four strategic aims: Increase engagement...
European Kidney Health Alliance
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
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Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers).
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs. There may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out via contact form.
