Verian Brussels and PPMI kickstart a project for European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) to develop a community of practice in social and behavioural sciences.
The objective of the project will be to strengthen the capacity of EU/EEA Member States in terms of communicable disease outbreak prevention and preparedness, combining knowledge-sharing, capacity-building through training, and a community of practice (CoP) designed to foster peer learning and innovation.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on EU countries’ health care systems and societies has made clear the extent and gravity of the impact that communicable disease outbreaks can have on modern societies and the urgency of preventing and preparing for future outbreaks. The recent pandemic has highlighted the need to adopt and integrate interdisciplinary approaches to tackling public health threats brought about by communicable diseases within EU-level policies and actions.
The Commission’s new health security framework package adopted in 2022 expanded the mandate for the ECDC and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in strengthening Union-level prevention, preparedness, and response to communicable disease outbreaks in the future. Most relevant to this project is the ECDC’s strengthened mandate which provides the agency with enhanced competencies for epidemiological surveillance, reporting, and monitoring for outbreak preparedness and response.
In this context, Verian and PPMI, together with EHMA - European Health Management Association, Dr Kristina Curtis, UCL Centre for Behaviour Change, Escola Nacional de Saúde Pública, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, we will be mapping and engaging stakeholders, provide trainings and build and bring to life the CoP.