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IMPROVING HEALTH SECURITY IN EUROPE

Submitted by christian on Thu, 03/12/2020 - 14:22
  1. Establish an objective process to identify and assess health threats, independent of international health authorities and develop a robust policy for handling advisors’ conflicts of interest in relation to decisions about medicines or other therapies intended for use in health emergencies.
  2. Epidemiological surveillance needs to be improved in terms of enhanced coordination amongst different organizations; harmonization of data collection; communication and most of all capacity building and preparedness planning for emergency situations.
  3. There is a need to improve the coordination between Member States to harmonize key messages, to use all possible channels to disseminate a clear, correct, coherent, balanced and uniform communication to the public and healthcare professionals in all Member States. Healthcare professionals' organizations should be used for spreading the information. Risk communication and risk management can be negatively affected by economic, political and media coverage concerns.
  4. Lack of standardization and communication can cause delays with the implementation of some public health measures.
  5. The EU should be more involved in the preparedness and risk assessment.  Response should be flexible, proportionate and adapted to the severity of the threat.
  6. There is a need to update and exercise regularly the available response plans and to undertake joint cross-border exercises for health emergency preparedness for all the parties involved to react in health related emergencies.
  7. Coordination between Member States should be improved.
  8. All serious cross-border threats to health should be treated equally at EU level. For this purpose, the EU should have an all-hazard approach as well as a coordination and handling role .
  9. Communication should be developed at national level to take into consideration national circumstances and traditions. However, coordination at EU level is essential to avoid contradicting messages leading to confusion and loss of public confidence. A coordinated approach is important. Key messages should be agreed and harmonized among EU Member States. Information provided by different authorities as well as in the whole EU should be coherent.
  10. Communication should be transparent, clear, correct and quick, which means in a timely manner and supported by evidence-based research. Citizens must be informed promptly and completely.
  11. Transparency at every level of decision making should be ensured. In particular, the rationale behind the declaration of a health emergency and the authorisation of large-scale medical interventions is crucial to the public understanding of how and why these decisions are made within the EU.  
  12. Improving information requires the cooperation of all stakeholders, to ensure both healthcare workers and the general public trust the information provided and are motivated to act on experts’ recommendations. More direct communication to healthcare professionals' organisations could help.
  13. Health professional’s knowledge on the situation should be improved in order to transmit more accurate messages to the rest of the population.
  14. Culturally competent education and information to the public, reaching out to vulnerable populations and groups within ethnic minorities, migrants should be ensured.
  15. Mandates and roles of the different EU institutions and bodies should be clarified and explained to the professionals and to the public.
  16. Better scientific advice and evidence-based guidance in public health crises for a better preparedness planning and communication.
  17. Involve civil society organisations, public members/patient groups in the development appropriate format and dissemination channels for communicating risk information. By including the target audience in these preparatory steps, EU authorities can enhance the readability and accessibility of their messages and ultimately, raise public awareness of the health threat in question through a variety of dissemination techniques so that they are accessible to the widest possible European audience. Use a random panel of peer-reviewers to control the adequacy of the messages. Have an EU-level independent institution. Develop research related to risk perception and risk communication.
  18. More awareness on public health consequences of serious cross-border health threats should be raised at EU, national and regional level towards the public but also towards the authorities. The latter are sometimes not aware that there is a working infrastructure in place. A better multisectoral cooperation and collaboration of networks of experts should be encouraged.
  19. Making risk and crisis communication an integral part of risk management at EU level.
  20. Providing more guidelines on risk and crisis communication at EU level.
  21. Supporting the communication efforts of Member States and other bodies dealing with health measures.
  22. Establishing networks and improving communication with healthcare professionals.
  23. Improving communication with the media.
  24. Improving consistency of communication messages between Member States.

 

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IMPROVING HEALTH SECURITY IN EUROPE

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