The future of immunization policies in Italy and in the European Union: The Declaration of Erice

Odone, Anna; Fara, Gaetano Maria; Giammaco, Giuseppe; Blangiardi, Francesco; Signorelli, Carlo

doi:10.1080/21645515.2015.1019980

Cited by 27 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…The current study sits on a broader platform; in fact, as representatives of the Italian public health community, we have extensively worked in recent years to support and inform immunization policies in Italy: systematically pooling data on different immunization programmes, 22 monitoring regional and national-level vaccine coverage, 14,15 contrasting misinformation, 19 and assessing the impact and potential of different communication tools and strategies. 23,24 As we report, political commitment to promote immunization has increased in recent years in Italy 9 that has been reflected in media communication around vaccines on the popular press. As we demonstrate, in 2017 two first-page articles per week on average were published on the Corriere dealing with vaccines and immunization, underlining how the topic made headlines.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Immunization and media coverage in Italy: an eleven-year analysis (2007-17)

Odone

Tramutola

Morgado

et al. 2018

Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics

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Immunization polices in Italy has recently reached important milestones, including the approval of the National Immunization Prevention Plan and of a new law mandatory immunization; this stimulating a lively debate at the scientific, political and societal-level, reflected on the media. We applied a model previously published to quantitatively and qualitatively assess media coverage on vaccines and immunization-related topics on the most read Italian newspaper, "Corriere della Sera", over an 11-year study period (2007-2017). We retrieved relevant key words and articles, reported on included articles' topic, position, approach to immunization and on other selected indicators' summary statistics, temporal trends and correspondence with key epidemiological and policy events. Over the study period the quote "vaccin*" was mentioned on average 325 times per year; with an increase of 150% after the approval of the new law on mandatory immunization in 2017. In the same year, on average, two first-page articles per week were published on the topic. We report a clear association between key events (i.e the H1N1 influenza pandemic, the "Fluad case", the approval of the new law on mandatory immunization) and their media coverage. Overall, 84% of articles had a positive attitude towards immunization, this share decreasing to 79% when only considering articles published after the approval of the law on mandatory vaccination. Media play a crucial role in channelling health-related information and significantly influence health behaviours. We urge public institutions, health authorities and the scientific community not to underestimate the opportunity to monitor media coverage on key healthcare topics and to convey evidence-based health education messages through the media.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

Immunization and media coverage in Italy: an eleven-year analysis (2007-17)

Odone

Tramutola

Morgado

et al. 2018

Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics

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“…For these reasons, it is vital to stimulate communication campaigns to encourage people healthy lifestyles and develop materials for health education. In fact, communication plays a crucial role in vaccination hesitancy, and thus it is necessary to identify the main communication channels to use resources and strategies that can influence public opinion [43]. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that tries to assess the contents of YouTube videos and their associated sentiment on compulsory vaccination using text mining and sentiment analysis tools.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using text mining and sentiment analysis to analyse YouTube Italian videos concerning vaccination

2020

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Background: Recently, social networks have become a popular source of information on health topics. Particularly, in Italy, there is a lively discussion on the web regarding vaccines also because there is low vaccination coverage, vaccines hesitancy, and anti-vaccine movements. For these reasons, in 2017, Institutions have introduced a law to force children to make ten compulsory vaccines for school attendance and proposed a vaccination campaign. On social networks, this law has fostered a fierce discussion between pro-vaccinations and anti-vaccinations people. This paper aims to understand if and how the population's opinion has changed before the law and after the vaccination campaign using the titles of the videos uploaded on Youtube in these periods. Method: Using co-occurrence network (CON) and sentiment analysis, we analysed the topics of YouTube Italian videos on vaccines in 2017 and 2018. Results: The CON confirms that vaccinations were very disapproved before the law. Instead, after the communication campaign, people start to be less critical. The sentiment analysis shows that the intense vaccination campaign also promoted by medical doctors pushed the sentiment to change polarity from a prevailing negative opinion in 2017 (52% negative) to a positive one in 2018 (54% positive). Conclusion: At the population level, the potential misinformation of social networks could be significant and is a real risk for health. Our study highlights that vaccination campaigns on social networks could be an essential instrument of health policies and a sharp weapon to fight ignorance and misrepresentations of non-qualified people influencing individuals' decision-making.

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“…As in 2014 – when the priorities and challenges of the Italian immunization system were discussed 5,6 – this new declaration arose out of an intensive residential, independent 5-day workshop organized in Erice, Sicily, by the International School of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine “G. D’Alessandro” in collaboration with the Italian Societies of Public Health (SItI) and Pediatrics (SIP).…”

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confidence: 99%

Communication about vaccination: A shared responsibility

Biasio¹,

Corsello

Costantino

et al. 2016

Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics

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Vaccine hesitancy is an important issue to be addressed, due to the risk of decrease of vaccination coverage and consequent control of preventable diseases. While it is not considered a specific determinant, poor or inadequate communication can contribute to vaccine hesitancy and negatively influence vaccination uptake. As a contribution to the ongoing discussion regarding this theme and in the perspective of the implementation of the upcoming national vaccination plan in Italy, the Erice Declaration was drafted by experts in the field of immunization following a 5-day residential, independent workshop regarding communication topics in vaccinology. The aim of the current letter is to present to the broader international audience such a contribution, proposing the identification of the main actions that should be taken into account and prioritized in order to improve communication in the domain of vaccination.

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The future of immunization policies in Italy and in the European Union: The Declaration of Erice

Cited by 27 publications

References 14 publications

Immunization and media coverage in Italy: an eleven-year analysis (2007-17)

Immunization and media coverage in Italy: an eleven-year analysis (2007-17)

Using text mining and sentiment analysis to analyse YouTube Italian videos concerning vaccination

Communication about vaccination: A shared responsibility

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