Overcoming obstacles to vaccination: five selected practices

To collect practices, a call was launched on the Best Practice Portal in collaboration with European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) and DG SANTE and remained open to Member State health authorities from 29 September until 27 November 2022, including an extension of two weeks to allow health authorities to refine their submissions and encourage additional health authorities to submit a practice. The consortium closely collaborated with health authorities before and during this period to inform them of the project and its scope, guide them through the submission process, provide answers to their questions, and highlight timelines and deadlines. 

The requirement of deliverable 9 (D9), as per Tender Specifications, was to collect “at least five best practices to overcome obstacles to vaccination of physical, practical and administrative nature, from at least two different EU Member States”. A revised set of evaluation criteria was agreed by the Steering Group on Health Promotion, Disease Prevention and Management of Non-Communicable Diseases (SGPP) during a long revision process aiming to make the criteria more inclusive. As a result, ‘promising practices’ were also included alongside ‘best practices’ in the revised criteria. 

Overall, a total of 24 practices were submitted by 16 regional or national health authorities via the Best Practice Portal. Submissions came from Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western Europe. France, Spain, and Portugal submitted three practices each, followed by two practices each from Croatia and Ireland. The majority of participating Member States submitted one practice.

Four main target groups were identified in the submitted practices: elderly, adolescents, children, and all age groups. The most mentioned target groups are ‘all age groups’ and ‘children’. Some received practices covered multiple target groups. Further, some practices covered ‘all age groups’ but also focussed on a certain target group; in these cases, both ‘all age groups’ and the relevant specific target group were assigned to the practices to highlight this focus.