Ecom project brought together various disciplines to go beyond the current knowledge, in order to develop an evidence-based behavioural and communication package for health professionals and agencies throughout Europe in case of major outbreaks of infectious diseases.
The goal was reached through the following specific objectives:
- To assess the time-dependent influences of epidemiology and risk communication including media content on human behaviour during the A/H1N1 pandemic;
- To analyse, using social marketing principles, vaccination behaviour, audience segmentation, and vaccination service delivery;
- To analyse knowledge, attitudes, risk perception, vaccination non-response and reasons for resistance during past epidemics;
- To apply Discrete Choice Experiments to determine acceptance of preventive measures in the case of epidemic outbreaks;
- To integrate the key findings of the studies under the first four objectives, to determine critical factors, groups, and media to be addressed in the development of effective strategies;
- To test behavioural interventions and communication strategies tailored to different target audiences;
- To finalize and disseminate a package of evidence-based tools that can be tailored to individual European countries.