Citizens

Sarah Boseley: uncertainty in infectious outbreaks

June 3, 2015

As the health editor of a prominent UK newspaper like The Guardian, Sarah Boseley has often faced the challenge of communicating uncertainty when dealing with health issues. This is even harder in the case of infectious disease outbreaks, when not all the information is always available from the beginning. Nevertheless, media should keep on trying to explain the public that sometimes even scientists and public health authorities have to say: “We don’t know”.

Target: 
Citizens, Government and Public Health, Healthcare Professionals
Topic: 
Media
Tags: 
Video, Uncertainty

Geraldine O’Hara, a doctor on the air

May 29, 2015

An infectious diseases specialist in London, Geraldine O’Hara spent two months in Sierra Leone with Médecins sans Frontières last year, at the peak of the Ebola crisis. While working in an Ebola treatment centre, she was asked to share her experience on Radio 4, a national radio station in UK. We met her at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia, where she told us about how she learnt such a new job and how she realized that real-life stories might greatly improve science communication.

Target: 
Citizens, Government and Public Health, School and Education
Topic: 
Media, Social Media, Stakeholders
Tags: 
Event, Ebola, Viewpoint, Video

Charlie Cooper on stigma in infectious diseases

May 29, 2015

As AIDS taught and TELL ME project highlighted, the risk of stigma in case of an infectious disease can sometimes be very strong. This is an innate reaction to the fear of catching an infection, but it often irrationally widens to discriminate people depending on their ethnicity, origin or job. According to Charlie Cooper, health reporter for The Independent, media can deeply influence the public in this.

Target: 
Citizens, Decision Makers, Government and Public Health, Healthcare Professionals, School and Education
Topic: 
Human Rights, Media, Social Media, Stakeholders
Tags: 
AIDS, Stigmatization, Video, Fear

ECOM, effective communication in times of an outbreak

Thursday, May 21, 2015 - 10:19

ECOM stands for “Effective Communication in Outbreak Management: development of an evidence-based tool for Europe”. The ECOM project is a research project under the EU 7th Framework Programme and runs from February 2012 till February 2016. By bringing together various disciplines, the project aims to go beyond the current knowledge in order to develop an evidence-based behavioural and communication package for health professionals and agencies throughout Europe in case of major outbreaks of infectious diseases.

ECOM's goal is reached through the following specific objectives:

Source: 
Other EU projects
Target: 
Citizens, Decision Makers, Government and Public Health, Healthcare Professionals, School and Education
Topic: 
Media, Vaccination
Tags: 
Video, Project

Involving local communities: the Ebola case

Monday, May 11, 2015 - 09:39

The report published in March 2015 by Medecins sans frontières speaks out clearly against the “global coalition of inaction” and the “vacuum of leadership” in the Ebola crisis in West Africa. Those who were struggling in the field against a huge and out-of-control emergency, without the necessary resources, list the main causes of such a situation: lack of political will, inexperience, and, sometimes, simply fear.

Target: 
Citizens, Decision Makers, Government and Public Health, Healthcare Professionals, Industry & Commerce, School and Education
Topic: 
Citizens' Mobilization, Epidemiology, Human Rights, Local Activities, Policy, Stakeholders, Treatment
Tags: 
Ebola, Viewpoint

Playing with vaccines: a proposal for a new LEGO set

Monday, April 20, 2015 - 12:59

The beginning of the European Immunization Week, which will be followed in a few days by the World Immunization Week, is a perfect chance to remind the importance of vaccination and immunization programme. Among the several initiatives to keep the attention high on such a topic, one involved even the Lego group. Lego ideas is a website developed by the famous Danish toy company where fans may share ideas and proposals for new Lego set. The website allows everyone to post an idea and to gather support.

Target: 
Citizens, Industry & Commerce, School and Education
Topic: 
Citizens' Mobilization, Prevention, Vaccination
Tags: 
Vaccine

World Immunization week

Friday, April 24, 2015 (All day)

The World Immunization Week, which will be held from 24-30 April 2015, will signal a renewed global, regional, and national effort to accelerate action to increase awareness and demand for immunization by communities, and improve vaccination delivery services.

Read more
Type: 
General event
Target: 
Citizens, Decision Makers, Government and Public Health, Healthcare Professionals, Industry & Commerce, School and Education
Topic: 
Human Rights, Prevention, Vaccination
Tags: 
Event, WHO, Vaccine

Engaging citizens in health risk governance

Tuesday, April 14, 2015 - 10:10

Viruses and bacteria are not the only ones to spread during an epidemic. Rumours and misinformation can do that too, eventually leading to the constitution of a parallel information system that could undermine the efficacy of the institutional communication. Similar situations often arise in case of contested knowledge or when only few highly technical experts are left dealing with scientific information.

Target: 
Citizens, Decision Makers, Government and Public Health, Healthcare Professionals
Topic: 
Citizens' Mobilization, Epidemiology, Policy, Stakeholders, Treatment
Tags: 
Deliverable

Lessons to be learned from the Ebola epidemic

Monday, October 12, 2015 (All day)

The Health Department of the European Commission will organise a conference for Member States and partners on lessons to be learned from the Ebola epidemic. The event is organised in close collaboration with the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council and will take place in Mondorf-les-Bains from 12 to 14 October 2015. There will be four sessions, each of them focusing on a specific topic:

Read more
Type: 
General event
Target: 
Citizens, Decision Makers, Government and Public Health, Healthcare Professionals
Topic: 
Epidemiology, Media, Microbiology, Policy, Prevention, Stakeholders, Treatment, Vaccination
Tags: 
Event, Ebola

ASSET High Level Policy Forum members meet for the first time

Friday, March 27, 2015 - 10:31

The first meeting of the Asset High Level Policy Forum was held in Bruxelles on March 12.  The Forum was intended to bring together selected European policy-makers at regional, national and EU levels, key decision makers in health agencies, the pharmaceutical industry, and civil society organisations, in a unique and interactive dialogue to promote on-going reflection on EU strategic priorities about pandemics.

Target: 
Citizens, Decision Makers, Government and Public Health, Healthcare Professionals, Industry & Commerce
Topic: 
Policy
Tags: 
Event

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MMLAP and other EU Projects

AsiaFluCap
Health system analysis to support capacity development in response to the threat of pandemic influenza in Asia
BEWATER
Making society an active participant in water adaptation to global change
CASI
Public Participation in Developing a Common Framework for Assessment and Management of Sustainable Innovation
CIMULACT
Engaging all of Europe in shaping a desirable and sustainable future
DARWIN
Expect the unexpected and know how to respond
DRIVER
Driving innovation in crisis management for European resilience
ECOM
Effective communication in outbreak management: development of an evidence-based tool for Europe
EDEN
Solutions to improve CBRNe resilience
EPISOUTH
Network for Communicable Disease Control in Southern Europe and Mediterranean Countries
EPIWORK
Developing the framework for an epidemic forecast infrastructure
EUPHARE
Strengthening of the national surveillance system for communicable diseases
EUROHEP
Surveillance of vaccine preventable hepatitis
EuroMOMO
European monitoring of excess mortality for public health action
EURONHID
European network for highly infectious disease
EUVAC.NET
Dedicated surveillance network for surveillance and control of vaccine preventable diseases in the EU
FLUMODCONT
Modelling the spread of pandemic influenza and strategies for its containment and mitigation
FLURESP
Cost-effectiveness assessment of european influenza human pandemic alert and response strategies
GAP2
Bridging the gap between science, stakeholders and policy makers
HProImmune
Promotion of immunization for health professionals in Europe
INPROFOOD
Towards inclusive research programming for sustainable food innovations
JA-CHRODIS
Addressing chronic diseases and healthy ageing across the life cycle
M-Eco
Medical ecosystem – personalized event-based surveillance
MAPPING
Studying the many and varied economic, social, legal and ethical aspects of the recent developments on the Internet, and their consequences for the individual and society at large
MARINA
Get involved in the responsible marine research and innovation
PACITA
Knowledge-based policy-making on issues involving science, technology and innovation, mainly based upon the practices in Parliamentary Technology Assessment
PANDEM
Assessment of the current pandemic preparedness and response tools, systems and practice at national, EU and global level in priority areas
PE2020
Analysis of innovative public engagement tools and instruments for dynamic governance in the field of Science in Society
PERARES
Public Engagement with Research And Research Engagement with Society
PHEME
Computing Veracity – the Fourth Challenge of Big Data
PREPARE
Providing infrastructure, co-ordination and integration of existing clinical research networks on epidemics and pandemics
PROMOVAX
Promote vaccinations among migrant population in Europe
R&DIALOGUE
Creating mechanisms for effectively tackling the scientific and technology related challenges faced by society
RESPIRE
Improve the quality of indoor air, keeping it free from radon
SATORI
Improving respect of ethics principles and laws in research and innovation, in line with the evolution of technologies and societal concerns
SECURING CITIES AGAINST GLOBAL PANDEMICS
Investigating how cities in the West securitise against global pandemics
SEiSMiC
Creating a structured dialogue and mutual learning with citizens and urban actors by setting up National Networks in 10 countries across Europe
SIS CATALYST
Identifying how children can be change agents in the Science and Society relationship
SYN-ENERGENE
Establishing an open dialogue between stakeholders concerning synthetic biology’s potential benefits and risks
TELLME
Transparent communication in Epidemics: Learning Lessons from experience, delivering effective Messages, providing Evidence