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Year 9th, number 95 - October 2021
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| Highlight |
REGISTER HERE
Active Citizenship Network (ACN) is glad to invite you on 29th of October 2021, from 11.00 to 13.00 CEST, to the EU training webinar entitled "Stroke prevention & life after stroke, during the pandemic".
The event is realized in the framework of the project EU PAGs & citizens together in the fight against stroke on the occasion of the World Stroke Day: we will talk about stroke prevention, and life after stroke, with concrete examples of activities and tools that can improve the lives of patients and caregivers. The main objective is to provide an overview in order to know how to recognize and share the official sources of information to identify, recognize, and combat the main risk factors (pre-stroke) and to be aware of patients’ rights (pre and after a stroke); to discuss and address the main challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent and to live after a stroke; to be better equipped to protect rights and promote policies, at EU and local level. Read more:
The commitment of Cittadinanzattiva-Active Citizenship Network in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases (EN – IT) |
| Focus |
EU Survey: "Addressing the challenges of concomitant deployment of COVID-19 and influenza vaccination"
In occasion of the annual EU Flu Day, on 14th October 2021, it has been launched a survey focused on this new INFLUENZA vaccination campaign and the concomitant deployment of COVID-19 vaccination. Don’t miss it, have your say! Fill it here, the deadline to complete the survey is the 20th of November.
The initiative has been developed by Active Citizenship Network in the framework of the EU project #VaccinAction 2021 "Protecting the value of vaccination during - and after - the COVID-19 pandemic across Europe: impact, experiences and perspectives from citizens’ and patients’ advocacy groups & relevant stakeholders”, to support the COVID-19 vaccination environment while enhancing the uptake of routine immunisation.
It is not a collection of statistical data, but a sort of “online focus group” (that we cannot carry out in person) to bring out the opinions and concerns of the various stakeholders involved, in the different countries.
The survey is divided into 6 sections (general info, resources, access, monitoring, communication, engagement), it will be considered anonymous, and it will take no more than a few minutes. It is not possible to save the answers during the compilation and the survey must be filled in all in a single session.
Your collaboration will be fundamental! Many thanks in advance for your time and for further information, do not hesitate to contact the Active Citizenship Network team in the person of Daniela Quaggia.
Read more:
The engagement of Cittadinanzattiva on vaccination.
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| News |
| Patients' Rights |
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European Flu Day 2021: “One voice to protect populations from flu in the age of COVID-19”
Despite low flu circulation in the past year, mainly due to the sanitary restrictions enforced during the COVID-19 pandemic, world leading experts are warning about severe challenges in our ability to predict the epidemiology of the upcoming flu season. As societies are opening up, the risk of a severe flu season is high. It is more important than ever before that flu vaccination campaigns are strengthened, especially to protect vulnerable populations. In this regard, last 14 October 2021 MEP Dolors Montserrat and the Steering Group on Influenza Vaccination, with the support of Vaccines Europe, hosted a webinar to mark the EU Flu Day 2021, entitled “One voice to protect populations from flu in the age of COVID-19". This virtual event had the aim of bringing together representatives from EU institutions, national policymakers, and other stakeholders to discuss the various challenges faced by health authorities in view of the COVID-19 pandemic’s spill-over effect on routine vaccination. For more information, please click here and contact the Steering Group on Influenza Vaccination Secretariat.
Did you miss the #EUFluDay webinar last week? Learn about the insightful discussions that took place
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Joint Statement on Healthcare Professionals Vaccination
In the occasion of the EU Flu Day 2021, the Steering Group on Influenza Vaccination, of which Active Citizenship is a part of, has realized a Joint Statement on the importance of healthcare professionals’ (HCP) vaccination with the aim to highlight the importance of strengthened efforts at the EU level to ensure healthcare professionals across Europe are protected in the very unpredictable influenza season ahead. Increasing coverage rates among HCPs will not only benefit individuals, but also wider society, by shielding vulnerable populations and helping to ease pressure on already overstretched healthcare systems.
The Joint Statement has called on the European Commission to: support information campaigns in local languages to spread awareness about the upcoming influenza season among target groups; encourage EU Member States and regions to ensure the involvement of HCPs in all stages and levels of vaccination programmes, which will also help create advocates to promote influenza vaccination uptake; facilitate best-practice sharing between national, regional and local authorities; call on the ECDC to develop an influenza vaccination tracker system to monitor vaccination uptake in the eligible population and support national public health measures to reach recommended targets. Click here to read the document. 
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Flu Awareness Week: Coalition for Vaccination's statement
On the occasion of the Flu Awareness Week - and its Annual Meeting - the Coalition for Vaccination, with which Active Citizenship Network is an associated organisation, has launched a social media campaign to recommend getting vaccinated against influenza also this year! Read the statement on the Coalition website.
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Promoting civic information to better address the collateral damage of COVID-19 on cardiovascular disease across Europe
Did you miss our digital event dedicated to patients and titled “Promoting civic information to better address the collateral damage of COVID-19 on cardiovascular disease across Europe”? Do not worry! The recording is now available here. Click here to download the materials, and to know more about the panelists, click here. For the new communication campaign launched by Active Citizenship Network in occasion of the annual “World Heart Day”, please visit the ACN official YouTube channel. 
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Publications
In the past months, Active Citizenship Network published several articles on international peer review journals, healthcare specialized media and generalist journal. In details:
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| Consumers' Rights |
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Launch of the first sustainable mobility manifesto by Italian schools
Cittadinanzattiva’s most recent project on sustainable mobility, promoted in conjunction with the Unipolis Foundation, is the fruit of the work of 2,000 students from 57 Italian schools which imagines and sketches out the possible ways in which mobility and the communities of the future will work. The proposals include apps that reward people who use eco-friendly means of transport; sustainable, integrated areas in towns where cars and bikes can be recharged; benches with solar panels; smog-eating buses; and sensors that can reveal whether drivers have taken alcohol or drugs. Ten groups representing ten secondary schools from across Italy presented and delivered the first sustainable mobility Manifesto by Italian schools to Enrico Giovannini, Minister of Sustainable Infrastructures and Mobility, last September in Rome, in the framework of the Annual European Mobility Week, of which Cittadinanzattiva, through its EU branch Active Citizenship Network, is an associated partner since many years. To know more read here.
Read more:
The commitment of Cittadinanzattiva-Active Citizenship Network for the European Mobility Week
The policy of Cittadinanzattiva on mobility and transport (IT – EN) 
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NUDging consumers towards enerGy Efficiency through behavioral science – Pilot projects
As the first year of the NUDGE Project ends, the first phase of data collection on consumers’ behaviors regarding energy is ending, while the second phase begins. This year the NUDGE consortium will carry out five field trials to experiment with a broad set of behavioral interventions in scenarios with high potential for energy savings, targeting consumers from Greece, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, and Croatia. Pilot projects will target European consumers coming from different environments (residential, energy communities, schools), different age groups (children included), different income classes, and being served by different energy carriers.
These activities are the follow up of the actions carried out in the first year of the project, where Cittadinanzattiva, together with the other members of the consortium as well as its networks of consumer and civil organizations, has developed and disseminated a survey targeting consumers all over Europe. This survey, translated in 14 different languages, helped the NUDGE consortium collect information on the energy behaviors of European citizens, which have provided the data to develop the field pilots that will take place over 2021-2022.
Last 30 of September, in Thessaloniki, has been organized the first pilot workshop to evaluate with 9 invited domX users the respective nudges of the Greek pilot in terms of user acceptance, comprehensibility and ease-of-use. The workshop resulted in the collection of valuable feedback from our users that will ultimately assist in the design and implementation of the respective nudges within the domX smartphone application. For more information, please click here. 
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New Horizon call on consumer issues in the field of energy
The provisions of the Clean Energy Package have paved the way for a new, more active role of prosumers and energy communities in the electricity market. Innovative tools and tailored solutions should be developed and tested in order to fully enable new types of interaction between citizens as consumers, prosumers and (members of) energy communities and foster participation in energy (in particular electricity) markets. To reach these goals, the following call for Horizon projects has been launched:
TOPIC ID: HORIZON-CL5-2022-D3-01-08 - Supporting the action of consumers in the energy market and guide them to act as prosumers, communities and other active forms of active participation in the energy activities.
Call: Sustainable, secure and competitive energy supply (HORIZON-CL5-2022-D3-01)
The deadline to apply is April 26, 2022.
Read more:
Energy policies: the commitment of Cittadinanzattiva at the national and European level (IT -EN)
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| Networking News |
Agreements to reinforce our policy on patients’ rights at the European and global level
Active Citizenship Network keeps growing, and not only in Europe. In this newsletter we are going to report a series of agreements formalized in this last period, which testify a growing interest in our work on the one hand, and - on the other hand - our willingness to collaborate in synergy with the many actors of civil society who pursue common purposes.
Recently, Active Citizenship Network has expanded and consolidated its network by signing several Memorandum of Understandings with the following associations:
Active Citizenship Network is pleased to announce that a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed with the International Alliance of Patients’ Organizations IAPO, a unique global alliance of 280 patient organizations and alliances from 72 countries representing patients across all disease areas and promoting patient-centered healthcare around the world. ACN and IAPO agreed to cooperate at the global level to encourage awareness-raising initiatives and sharing best practices on appropriate antimicrobial use and prevention of antimicrobial resistance. This will be done also through the IAPO P4PS Observatory, a single-point global platform established with the aim to put patients at the centre of safe, affordable and accessible healthcare, and with a mission of reducing preventable harm through patient empowerment and engagement as equal partners in harm prevention.
Active Citizenship Network has recently signed a new Memorandum of Understanding with European Patient Safety Foundation (EUPSF), an independent, public interest Foundation, with the aim to support and raise standards of the safety and quality of care of patients as well as to encourage all parties interested to join in on a European and worldwide level. The Foundation also aims at being a best practices exchange platform for innovative, meaningful, sustainable, and replicable solutions for Patient Safety improvement. In this regard, ACN and EUPSF agreed to work together on the improvement of patients’ access to care and on strengthening patients’ empowerment and agreed to support each other’s initiatives and best practices on the topic of the protection of patients’ rights. 
Active Citizenship Network is glad to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with FOKUS Patient, a Swedish patients association whose mission is to provide a safer journey through the healthcare system for the individual and his or her relatives and influence for change and improvement within the healthcare sector. The agreement with Active Citizenship Network focuses on the promotion of patients’ rights and, most importantly, on advocating for public health as a common good.
Active Citizenship Network has recently signed an official agreement with the Centre for Regional Policy Research and Cooperation “Studiorum”, a Macedonian non-governmental think-tank working on economic and social aspects of EU integration and globalization processes. Active Citizenship Network and Studiorum aim to collaborate on the empowerment of citizens and patients and on increasing their participation in European public policies and dialogues.
Recently, Active Citizenship Network has also expanded and consolidated its network by signing several Memorandum of Understandings with the following Bulgarian associations:
The Association of Patients with Cardiovascular Disease works on increasing the active participation of patients in public debates and dialogue with the institutions in relation to prevention and treatment of the cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Active Citizenship Network, over the last 15 years, has also been increasing its contribution for the prevention of CVDs. The collaboration between the two was announced as a follow up of the Active Citizenship Network’s event “Promoting civic information to better address the collateral damage of COVID-19 on cardiovascular disease across Europe”, to which the Bulgarian association has also participated in the panel. The two associations, in this regard, aim at supporting each other’s initiatives in the areas of common interest related to the promotion of public health, with a particular focus on raising awareness about prevention on CVDs. 
Patients' Organizations With You has the aim of strengthening citizen participation in the management and control of the healthcare system. Active Citizenship Network and Patients' Organizations With You will support each other with the aim to encourage citizen participation in European public policies, activities, and dialogues as a key step towards a more inclusive Europe. 
The main objectives of Innovations Institute are to implement social innovations in Bulgaria in healthcare and education; improve the dialogue and partnership between public institutions, businesses and academic bodies to facilitate the innovations and improve the innovation capacity of the country; and implement innovative technological solutions in different sectors in social infrastructure and financing them via state budget, EU funded programs, donor organizations, public-private partnership projects. In this regard, Active Citizenship Network and Innovations Institute have the goal to support each other at the EU level to join forces to cooperate with EU institutions and both private and public relevant stakeholders towards a more resilient healthcare system for a healthier European Union.
The Association of Reproductive Health, Pregnancy and Childcare "Smile" focuses on strengthening the link between civil societies and institutions on issues related to the promotion of citizen and patient participation in the management and control of the healthcare and social system. Valuable in this sense, is the agreement signed between Active Citizenship Network and “Smile” on the topics of the protection of patients’ rights, reduction of health inequalities, and promotion of public health as a common good. 
The Alliance of Transplanted and Operated ATO "Future for All" highlights the need to introduce the principle of equal partnership between institutions, medical professionals` organizations and patients' associations in the development and adoption of strategies, standards, and policies in the healthcare field. ACN and the Alliance of Transplanted and Operated ATO "Future for All" will work together to facilitate the exchange of good practices in the healthcare areas of common interest and promote each other’s experiences and initiatives regarding the improvement of healthcare systems and the reduction of health inequalities. 
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| Events |
21 October 2021: “Joining forces across civil society organisations towards improved vaccination coverage”
In many countries, expanding vaccination pathways and providers has been met with concerns from those healthcare professionals who have traditionally led vaccination services. However, in several countries where pharmacist-led vaccination has been in place for years or even decades, this opposition has disappeared or significantly subsided, as it became clear that vaccination by pharmacists was safe, easily accessible and professional, that overall vaccination coverage increased and that the service provided value to individuals and societies. International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) has advocated for a greater participation of pharmacists in the vaccination space through a variety of roles, ranging from improving community awareness and providing evidence-based advice, addressing vaccine hesitancy and concerns, distributing and dispensing vaccines, administering vaccines and updating vaccination records. These roles were supported by the World Health Organization in the joint WHO-FIP Guidelines on Good Pharmacy Practice in 2011, and they continue to expand year after year worldwide in a consolidated manner. Active Citizenship Network has been invited as a panelist to bring to the discussion the point of view of the active and working population, for whom proximity, convenience and accessibility are key factors to improve access to vaccination services. The roundtable will take place on 21 October 2021, 13.00-14.30 CET, via Zoom. To join the initiative, click here.
Read more:
Cittadinanzattiva's commitment to pharmacies (IT – EN)
Our recent publication: JOURNAL OF VACCINES RESEARCH & VACCINATION (Volume 7 • Issue 1 • 100017 - published on Apr 16, 2021): Enlarging access to vaccination in Italy according to the citizens and the pharmacists’ perspective
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