Pre-conference: From insight to impact: advancing equitable vaccination across Europe


Tuesday 12 November, 9:00 – 17:00 Lisbon time (including network lunch)


Organised by

RiseVac, River EU and AcToVax4NAM projects, co-funded by European Commission

Background

Access to vaccinations continues to be suboptimal for marginalized and underserved communities. Efforts to improve vaccination coverage in people experiencing vulnerability needs to shift from individual responsibility to addressing system level barriers, strengthening vaccination literacy at the system level and improving relevant skills and capacities of the healthcare workforce to address cultural and social needs of people.  

This workshop will present the experience and knowledge from three projects co-funded by the European Union (Rise Vac, River EU and ActoVax4NAM) which work with marginalized populations to increase vaccination uptake. The workshop will share results and important lessons learned through the implementation of activities with various populations experiencing vulnerability in Europe. These results are relevant for researchers, public health professionals, and policy makers. 

The aim is to present cross-cutting issues which are important for addressing system-level barriers to vaccination. The workshop will present research methods that can help yield the necessary data to inform evidence-based action, such as transferability methods, development of conceptual frameworks and participatory research that can guide the selection of effective interventions for vaccine uptake. The workshop will also demonstrate how to put evidence into practice. Project leaders will show how they harnessed intersectoral approaches to improve individual and organisational vaccine literacy. The workshop will prove that there is no such thing as ‘hard-to-reach populations’ and that the problem lies in a lack of health system responsiveness to ensure vaccination for all.

Finally, important discussions will take place concerning how to enhance our impact, addressing also lack of data on vaccination among people in situations of vulnerability and underserved communities and identify policy-level changes that need to happen to make vaccine uptake equitable. Representatives from the European Commission, WHO and relevant national actors will make important contributions as to current and future priorities to achieve equitable access to vaccination among people in situations of vulnerability.

Programme

The full programme is available here.

Registration

The pre-conference is financially supported and the registration fee is only EUR 20. Networking lunch and refreshments are included. Number of registrations is limited to 150 persons.