Polish-Norwegian collaboration enabled a communication campaign on vaccinations in Poland
Based on a project funded by Norway Grants, the Polish National Institute of Public Health developed a new communication campaign directed mostly to health practitioners. This campaign involves the upgrade of a comprehensive website on vaccinations, creation of a Facebook fanpage, development of a guide on vaccination-related communication for physicians, e-learning platform and scientific conference.
The Norway Grants are funds available for 13 EU member countries that joined in 2004, 2007 and 2013, that are financed by Norway as part of the European Economic Area (EEA) collaboration. Based on the 2014-2017 funding, experts in Poland developed the communication campaign on vaccinations, based on transfer of knowledge and good practices from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, who was the partner of this project.
As part of the project, we upgraded the NIPH website on vaccine safety – SZCZEPIENIA.INFO, who is the only Polish language website accredited by the WHO Vaccine Safety Net. The information on the website was updated. We also added materials specifically targeting health practitioners – tips on communication, research summaries on vaccine safety, brochures ready for printing, and e-learning platform. As the SZCZEPIENIA.INFO website did not have any discussion forum available, we decided to create a Facebook fanpage where we are posting short news, interesting stories, video recordings with expert commentaries. Additionally, we encourage sending questions and comments.
This initiative coincided with a national debate on vaccine safety. The increasing activity of anti-vaccination groups, especially in social media, lead to a critical point, when politicians, journalists and members of general public, start discussing the rationale for vaccinations. Especially, we see an increasing discussion of the rationale for mandatory vaccinations in Poland.
Read more:
- The website of Norway Grants
- The Facebook profile of Szczepienia.info
