The monographic issue of Vaccine, published in August 2015 under the title “WHO Recommendations Regarding Vaccine Hesitancy”, is a collection of materials produced by a group specifically dedicated to the topic in 2012, under the combined leadership of the WHO and UNICEF.
Smith RD, Keogh-Brown MR, Barnett T, Tait J. BMJ. 2009 Nov 19;339:b4571.
Objectives: To estimate the potential economic impact of pandemic influenza, associated behavioural responses, school closures, and vaccination on the United Kingdom.
Design: A computable general equilibrium model of the UK economy was specified for various combinations of mortality and morbidity from pandemic influenza, vaccine efficacy, school closures, and prophylactic absenteeism using published data.
Increasingly, public health organisations and the public are grappling with how to filter out myth and misinformation online to find trustworthy, evidence-based health information.
Experts, skills and quick responses
Recent experiences during H1N1, Ebola and measles outbreaks have seen public health organisations begin to change their approach to providing health information online. Governments and public health organisations have begun to use three broad categories of online response:
A conference about the socio-economic impact that epidemics and pandemics may have will be held in Milan, October 27, with the collaboration of ASSET project. The event was inspired by the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which brought significant consequences on the economic and social structures of the three countries involved by the epidemic.
For a country, being ready to face an infectious disease outbreak requires, among other things, the capability to reach and involve all the components of the society. Especially those that are more exposed to health threats due to low quality housing, poor nutrition, lack of parental education and weak links to health services, as it happened in the 2010 measles epidemic in Bulgaria, where 90% of recorded cases occurred within the so-called Roma community.
Science is getting out of laboratories and reaching the general public. That is, we are moving from the only goal of bringing Science-in-society, adding that of bringing Society-in-science: for years researchers have been blamed for living in their ivory towers, and asked to learn how to talk to common people, explaining their work and influencing policies and behaviours; now common people are stepping into science, giving their own support to a common cause.
Communication is not merely a matter of passing information from one person to another. Just as important as the message itself is how the message is formulated, and who are the parties involved. This is particularly true in case of an infectious diseases outbreak, when proper risk communication can really make the difference in terms of number of lives saved.
