Updates February 2019-2020

Risk communication

Emergency risk communication (ERC) was scaled up at WHO/Europe during the past year. This is one of the areas where the Region is leading globally.

In September 2018, WHO/Europe’s Health Emergencies Programme launched a unique, tailored and sustainable ERC 5-step capacity-building package in English and Russian. The concept was to move away from the simple notion of training, instead accompanying each country through the development, testing and adoption of a multisectoral plan. In May 2019, the package was rolled out globally. At the end of the year, 20 countries and territories were enrolled, 1 had adopted the plan and 2 were in the process. An additional 12 countries expressed their interest to be enrolled in the next biennium.

As part of WHO’s whole-of-Syria response across the border from Turkey, staff from nongovernmental organizations working in north-western Syria were trained on ERC with a special focus on engaging with communities to protect health during conflict.

Engaging communities is a core feature of emergency preparedness and response. This was the focus of the second edition of SocialNet, which took place in Serbia in December 2019. It targeted 50 experts in the areas of risk communication, social science, health promotion, epidemiology, public health and emergency response from 19 countries and territories in the Region. The training was organized by the 3 levels of WHO (global, regional and country) and saw the collaboration of the key partners in health emergencies: the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Red Cross of Serbia.