EUPATI, European Patients’ Academy on Therapeutic Innovation, is a patient-led initiative that uses training courses, educational material and an online public library for empowering patients to engage more effectively in the development and approval of new treatments and become true partners in pharmaceutical research and development. Filippo Buccella, chairman of the Italian Liaison Team explains to ASSET how this initiative can involve healthy citizens as well, improving preparedness to infectious outbreaks and other crises.
ASSET is close to its conclusion and a concluding conference will be held in Rome, on October 30-31, to present all the main outcomes of the project. This event will take place at the hotel NH Roma Leonardo Da Vinci and will be targeted to a selected audience of EU stakeholders and policy makers. Its aim is to enhance advocacy and intersectoral approach in a multisetting scenario applied to fostering preparedness and response toward Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), like epidemics and even pandemics.
ASSET is close to its conclusion and a concluding conference will be held in Rome, on October 30-31, to present all the main outcomes of the project. This event will take place at the hotel NH Roma Leonardo Da Vinci and will be targeted to a selected audience of EU stakeholders and policy makers. Its aim is to enhance advocacy and intersectoral approach in a multisetting scenario applied to fostering preparedness and response toward Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), like epidemics and even pandemics.
Persons over the age of 65 have a higher risk for severe influenza-related complications and have the highest risk of mortality from influenza. Vaccination of older persons have traditionally been the main focus of influenza vaccine policy, and while vaccines are not as efficient in this population as in younger adults, it still remains the most effective public health tool to protect against influenza (WHO 2012). Vaccination recommendations vary slightly between countries in Europe, however almost all cover older people as a specific target group (Endrich et al 2009).
ASSET is close to its conclusion and a concluding conference will be held in Rome, on October 30-31, to present all the main outcomes of the project. This event will take place at the hotel NH Roma Leonardo Da Vinci and will be targeted to a selected audience of EU stakeholders and policy makers. It is conceived as a mobilization and mutual learning event at local, national and international levels on Science in Society related issues in epidemics and pandemics.
As reported in the ASSET Strategic plan, the three Summer Schools on Science in Society related issues in Pandemics (2015, 2016, 2017) pose the main challenge of the collaborative project overall that is dealing with the intersectoral approach required by the management of Public Health Emergencies of International Concern (PHEIC), like epidemics and pandemics.
Members of the ASSET projects will present the results of the citizen consultation that took place in eight countries on September 2016 at the European Parliament. Such an event is part of the science-in-society approach performed by the project within the framework of Research and Innovation related to pandemic preparedness. ASSET citizen consultation is an innovative method of engaging citizens on complex issues, providing them with information before asking questions.
Since the thalidomide tragedy in the late1950s, there has been a reluctance to include women of childbearing age in clinical trials. However, this fear cannot be used as an excuse to not include females in clinical trials, and, with proper care and regulation, increased female participation has been reached. The United States adopted regulation early on to increase the participation of women, while a new regulation in Europe is going to improve this as well. Here follows an overview of the issue in Canada and in the USA. The third part of this series will deal with new regulation in Europe.
Attention to sex and gender in biomedical, health and clinical research is an important quality and safety issue. Medicinal products are safer and more effective for everyone when clinical research includes diverse population groups. Historically, women’s health issues have focused on reproductive health, followed by gender issues such as behaviour, socio-economic factors, culture, lifestyles and influence biological development and health.
