Responsible Research and Innovation Associated With Risk Communication and Public Engagement on Health Emergency Preparedness at the Local Level

Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) associated with public health emergency preparedness (PHEP) and response pose major challenges to the scientific community and civil society because a multistakeholder and interdisciplinary methodology is needed to foster public engagement. In 2017, within “Action plan on Science in Society related issues in Epidemics and Total pandemics”, twenty-three initiatives in eleven cities—Athens, Brussels, Bucharest, Dublin, Geneva, Haifa, Lyon, Milan, Oslo, Rome, and Sofia—represented effective opportunities for Mobilization and Mutual Learning on RRI issues in the matter of PHEP with different community-level groups. These experiences show that to effectively address a discourse on RRI-related issues in PHEP it is necessary to engage the local population and stakeholders, which is challenging because of needed competencies and resources. Under coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, we are proven that such a diversified multistakeholder engagement on RRI related to PHEP locally needs further elaboration and practical development. Copyright © 2022 Possenti, De Mei, Kurchatova, Green, Drager, Villa, d'Onofrio, Saadatian-Elahi, Moore, Brattekas, Karnaki, Beresniak, Popa and Greco.

What good came out of the covid-19 epidemic? a cluster of cases with occupational lung disease

The Covid-19 epidemic has resulted in many workers having prolonged periods away from work, opening an opportunity to clarify the effect of occupational exposures on workers with equivocal diagnoses, and the effectiveness of previous relocation of workers with confirmed occupational asthma. However, investigations have been confounded by many clinics and physiology departments not running during the epidemic. We report a cluster of cases from an office building where previous investigations including two workplace visits with the ventilation engineer and a workplace challenge had been equivocal, but where prolonged periods away from work clarified the occupational cause for the symptoms. The index case was an intelligence officer (forensic computing) who developed cough and recurrent episodes of 'bronchitis' and voice change within weeks of moving into a large air-conditioned office with air supply delivered from the suspended floor and separate cooling delivered through the ceiling. Oasys ABC analysis of serial PEF records showed one positive timepoint (outside the 95% CI for days off work) in the evening after work but a negative ABC score and normal diurnal variation. A second record showed similar results (one late positive timepoint) making it highly likely that the changes were associated with work. Figure 1 shows the mean 2-hourly PEF on workdays (crosses) and days away from work (squares). The lower grey line shows the 95% CI for days away from work from the Oasys plotter. The mean of 11 workdays between 1830-20.30 is significantly lower than the 16 days away from work. At least two others working nearby were affected, a computer programmer had similar work-related symptoms and a data information officer more obviously asthmatic symptoms. The building has been closed during the epidemic and all substantially improved and are currently repeating PEF measurements, which are the only physiological tests readily available at present. The nature of the disease in the index case remains unclear. The PEF changes could be the very earliest indication of occupational asthma, could be due to hypersensitivity pneumonitis, which usually results in bigger PEF changes, or could represent occupational upper airways disease, but the late fall in PEF is unusual.

Interventions and compliance: How the response to COVID-19 reflects decades of retail food protection efforts

Preventing the spread of infectious disease relies heavily upon the development and implementation of public health interventions. The requisite debate over the effectiveness of these interventions is accompanied by discussions about which, if any, should be made mandatory. We contend that efforts to mandate interventions in the fight to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have clear similarities to the long-standing efforts to establish and promote retail food safety interventions. Specific similarities are that science is rarely the sole driver in deciding public health mandates and individuals' responses to them, compliance is key but can be difficult to achieve, and the concurrent incorporation of two or more interventions is a barrier against poor compliance. As these factors have a direct effect on the success of public health mandates, understanding the role and relationships among them can aid government and public health officials in ongoing efforts to prevent foodborne illness and slow the spread of COVID-19.

S110 What good came out of the Covid-19 epidemic? A cluster of cases with occupational lung disease

S110 Figure 1