Successfully completed the European project to support and strengthen vaccine awareness

IMMUNION (Improving IMMunisation cooperation in the European UNION) is a European project having the objective to support vaccine strategies. The project (active from April 2021 to March 2023) has contributed to improve knowledge on vaccines and vaccinations among health professionals and the information circulation in different target groups, through a multistakeholder collaboration including institutions, associations and media. The IMMUNION consortium has been focusing on activities of survey, professional training and communication, even with the aim to sustain visibility and role of the Coalition for Vaccination. In particular, ISS has coordinated the Work Package on finalising vaccine communication tools to increase vaccination compliance in target communities.

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.

PASSI and PASSI d'Argento population health indicators in Italy during the COVID-19 pandemic

Introduction: Since the very beginning, the COVID-19 pandemic has been strongly affecting the global community as per multiple life issues: not only the health-related domain but also the economic, social and cultural dimensions. Materials and methods: In Italy, the PASSI and PASSI d'Argento surveillance systems run a continuous monitoring of the main behavioural health-related risk factors, respectively, among adults (aged 18-69) and elderly (65 years and older). Since the end of July 2020, they also investigate the pandemic impact on several aspects of life, such as worsening of economic conditions, emotional status and citizens' trust toward health institutions.