The EUthyroid2 project aims to develop, implement and evaluate best-practice models for raising awareness of the risks of iodine deficiency in adolescents and young women in the European countries of Norway, England, Northern Ireland, Poland, Slovenia, Cyprus and the non-EU countries of Bangladesh and Pakistan. The cooperating countries can introduce intervention measures in the outpatient health system, in the school system or in both systems. Young women (18-24 years) and adolescents (13-17 years) are to be made aware of the importance of iodine and possible dietary adjustments by means of target group-specific information and education materials. In the outpatient healthcare system, a cluster-randomized controlled study design is used in which only women in the intervention arm receive the measure. In the school system, all recruited schools will receive the intervention, while the implementation approaches or the combination of intervention elements will be allocated. Awareness of the risks of iodine deficiency is the primary outcome. Other outcomes include, for example, iodine-related nutritional behavior or individual urinary iodine status (outpatient healthcare system).

As a consortium partner, the Department of Child Health Services Research is responsible for designing the complex intervention with a special focus on the outpatient healthcare system. Following the development of a functionally standardized intervention material, the materials are adapted to the specific context with the implementing countries. The department is also responsible for the process evaluation using a parallel convergent mixed-methods design (interviews, surveys, document analyses).