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Stakeholders’ Understanding of European Medicine Agency’s COVID-19 Vaccine Information Materials in EU and Regional Contexts

The COVID-19 pandemic posed challenges to communicating accurate information about vaccines because of the spread of misinformation. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) tried to reassure the public by communicating early on about the development and approval of COVID-19 vaccines. The EMA surveyed pa...

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Autores principales: Castro, Indiana, Van Tricht, Marie, Bonaccorso, Nicole, Sciortino, Martina, Garcia Burgos, Juan, Costantino, Claudio, Gonzalez-Quevedo, Rosa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10610863/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37897018
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines11101616
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author Castro, Indiana
Van Tricht, Marie
Bonaccorso, Nicole
Sciortino, Martina
Garcia Burgos, Juan
Costantino, Claudio
Gonzalez-Quevedo, Rosa
author_facet Castro, Indiana
Van Tricht, Marie
Bonaccorso, Nicole
Sciortino, Martina
Garcia Burgos, Juan
Costantino, Claudio
Gonzalez-Quevedo, Rosa
author_sort Castro, Indiana
collection PubMed
description The COVID-19 pandemic posed challenges to communicating accurate information about vaccines because of the spread of misinformation. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) tried to reassure the public by communicating early on about the development and approval of COVID-19 vaccines. The EMA surveyed patients/consumers, healthcare professional organizations, and individual stakeholders, both at the EU level and in an Italian regional context. The objectives of the study were to see if the EMA’s core information materials were informative and well-understood and which communication channels were preferred by the public. The main findings showed that individual patients/consumers generally prefer to obtain information about COVID-19 vaccines from the internet or mass media, while organizations and individual healthcare professionals prefer to obtain information from national and international health authorities. Both at EU and local levels, participants had a good understanding of the key messages from regulators and found the materials useful and relevant. However, some improvements were recommended to the visual, text, and dissemination formats, including publishing more information on safety and using a more public-friendly language. Also, it was recommended to maintain the EMA’s approach of using media, stakeholder engagement, and web-based formats to communicate about COVID-19 vaccines. In conclusion, user-testing of proactive communication materials aimed to prebunk misinformation during a public health crisis helps to ensure that users understand the development and safety of novel vaccine technologies. This information can then be used as a basis for further evidence-based communication activities by regulators and public health bodies in an emergency context.
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spelling pubmed-106108632023-10-28 Stakeholders’ Understanding of European Medicine Agency’s COVID-19 Vaccine Information Materials in EU and Regional Contexts Castro, Indiana Van Tricht, Marie Bonaccorso, Nicole Sciortino, Martina Garcia Burgos, Juan Costantino, Claudio Gonzalez-Quevedo, Rosa Vaccines (Basel) Article The COVID-19 pandemic posed challenges to communicating accurate information about vaccines because of the spread of misinformation. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) tried to reassure the public by communicating early on about the development and approval of COVID-19 vaccines. The EMA surveyed patients/consumers, healthcare professional organizations, and individual stakeholders, both at the EU level and in an Italian regional context. The objectives of the study were to see if the EMA’s core information materials were informative and well-understood and which communication channels were preferred by the public. The main findings showed that individual patients/consumers generally prefer to obtain information about COVID-19 vaccines from the internet or mass media, while organizations and individual healthcare professionals prefer to obtain information from national and international health authorities. Both at EU and local levels, participants had a good understanding of the key messages from regulators and found the materials useful and relevant. However, some improvements were recommended to the visual, text, and dissemination formats, including publishing more information on safety and using a more public-friendly language. Also, it was recommended to maintain the EMA’s approach of using media, stakeholder engagement, and web-based formats to communicate about COVID-19 vaccines. In conclusion, user-testing of proactive communication materials aimed to prebunk misinformation during a public health crisis helps to ensure that users understand the development and safety of novel vaccine technologies. This information can then be used as a basis for further evidence-based communication activities by regulators and public health bodies in an emergency context. MDPI 2023-10-19 /pmc/articles/PMC10610863/ /pubmed/37897018 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines11101616 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Castro, Indiana
Van Tricht, Marie
Bonaccorso, Nicole
Sciortino, Martina
Garcia Burgos, Juan
Costantino, Claudio
Gonzalez-Quevedo, Rosa
Stakeholders’ Understanding of European Medicine Agency’s COVID-19 Vaccine Information Materials in EU and Regional Contexts
title Stakeholders’ Understanding of European Medicine Agency’s COVID-19 Vaccine Information Materials in EU and Regional Contexts
title_full Stakeholders’ Understanding of European Medicine Agency’s COVID-19 Vaccine Information Materials in EU and Regional Contexts
title_fullStr Stakeholders’ Understanding of European Medicine Agency’s COVID-19 Vaccine Information Materials in EU and Regional Contexts
title_full_unstemmed Stakeholders’ Understanding of European Medicine Agency’s COVID-19 Vaccine Information Materials in EU and Regional Contexts
title_short Stakeholders’ Understanding of European Medicine Agency’s COVID-19 Vaccine Information Materials in EU and Regional Contexts
title_sort stakeholders’ understanding of european medicine agency’s covid-19 vaccine information materials in eu and regional contexts
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10610863/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37897018
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/vaccines11101616
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