12.H. Workshop: Opportunities for collaboration in improving vaccine acceptance among children and adolescents
Authors:   Organised by: EUPHA Child and adolescent public health section, EUPHA Infectious diseases section,   Chair persons: Danielle Jansen – EUPHA-CAPH, Michael Edelstein – EUPHA-IDC
Published: October 2020

In 2018, there were more than 140 000 measles deaths globally, mostly among children under the age of five. This high number of deaths by measles indicates that many vaccination programs are failing to meet their goal. In vaccination prevention strategies, cooperation between paediatricians, public health professionals and policy makers should be ensured to bundle the forces and knowledge to achieve optimal vaccination uptake. In addition, these disciplines have a role to play in raising awareness among politicians and shaping effective policy to ensure that children's health is safeguarded and promoted.

In this workshop, organised by EUPHA-CAPH and EUPHA-IDC, four global public health and paediatric perspectives on vaccination strategies and policies are brought together with the goal to learn from each other's experiences and to explore and define how collaboration between the different disciplines might contribute to realizing a higher vaccination rate in and outside Europe.

The first presentation (Károly Illy), chair of the Dutch Pediatric Association, will be from a paediatric perspective and focuses on different policies in different European countries regarding mandatory vaccination. In this presentation the advantages and disadvantages of these policies will be discussed along with the question how changes in vaccine legislation may influence vaccine acceptance. The second presentation (Danielle Jansen), chair of the EUPHA Child and Adolescent Public Health section, will be from a public health perspective and is about the organisation of vaccination services for underserved minority populations: what are examples of these populations, what barriers might they encounter and what seem good examples of organisation of vaccination services for minority populations? The third presentation (Barbara Rath), chair of the Vienna Vaccine Safety initiative, will be discussing the benefits of human-centered design and interdisciplinary collaboration to innovate vaccine delivery, safety surveillance, research and communication. In the final presentation (Frederic Bouder), Professor in Risk Management, will be presenting recent risk analysis work on perceptions of flu vaccine helping practitioners to articulate general lessons within a national/cultural context and in a way that will take the life-course approach into account.

The presentations will be followed by a discussion in which the audience will be involved: we will elaborate on the presentations; the presenters will answer questions and discuss with the audience how we should realize a higher vaccination rate in and outside Europe. The discussion will be moderated by the chair of the EUPHA Infectious diseases control section.

Key messages

Collaboration between disciplines is needed to improve vaccine acceptance among children and adolescents. Acting together is crucial in raising vaccination awareness among politicians.