Vaccine hesitancy in Europe: the long and winding road

Vaccine hesitancy has always been a hot topic in the European public health discussions and the COVID-19 pandemic has increased its relevance for consequences not exclusively related to health. In this presentation, results of a recent analysis carried out on data from the last round of the European Social Survey will be shown, highlighting that the relationship of vaccine hesitancy with many socio-cultural elements, among which conspiracy theories and distrust towards scientific community. As for other public health topics, these considerations underline the need for a multidisciplinary and multistakeholder approach to vaccine hesitancy, particularly important for countries like Eastern Europe where hesitancy and conspiracy theories appear to be widespread. This approach would be able to explore and understand all the addressable factors to structure the right way of communicating and disseminating evidence, engaging the population of any sociocultural area, and reducing hesitancy by increasing trust in scientists and institutions, driving safely on this long and winding vaccination road.