7.M. Round table: The role of European schools of public health in the 2020 COVID-19 response

Abstract

Abstract With its repeated waves of infection and a high death toll in countries all over the world, the COVID-19 pandemic places the public health (PH) discipline at the centre of public attention. The pandemic threatens the health of individual citizens, higher-risk population groups and society as a whole. It threatens national and global economies. Thus, it is a crucial ethical requirement to activate all available resources of PH knowledge and skills, nationally as well as internationally, in response to the pandemic. Universities, Schools and Departments of Public Health (SPHs) hold important resources in terms of theoretical and practical competences. In order that PH professionals will have the competency profile necessary to deliver the Essential Public Health Operations (EPHOs) to combat health threats, including pandemics, the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER) has developed competency systems and lists for the PH workforce as well as for the academic knowledge and skills foundation of PH in its broadest sense. Consequently, the membership of ASPHER represents a substantial resource of PH knowledge and skills, enabling the SPHs to play a critical role also in the COVID-19 pandemic. To develop the knowledge and skills competency resource further, ASPHER however set up a COVID-19 Task Force to describe and analyse the many-sided dynamic challenges, which the pandemic presents to society and thus to the role of PH institutions and professionals. Under normal circumstances, the central roles of the SPHs are teaching and research and, to a more limited extent, health communication to the public and giving advice to society's decision-makers. The question is, however, whether and to what extent these crucial resources actually are activated across the walls of the schools during the present pandemic. To throw light on this, the Task Force performed a survey on the actual, concrete role of ASPHER's members in the pandemic during 2020. Half of the members (59 SPHs) completed the survey questionnaire. Among respondents, eight out ten had been involved in consultancy and giving advice to national, regional and/or local decision-makers. A similar proportion was involved both in COVID-19 related teaching and health communication to the public and in COVID-19 related research. Thus, the study demonstrated an outstanding potential to deliver crucial knowledge and skills to support the governance and the PH systems necessary to combat COVID-19 now and in the future. Accordingly, the main objective of the present panel discussion is to illustrate, how SPHs in four countries - France, Israel, Lithuania, Portugal - responded concretely to the COVID-19 pandemic through 2020, scrutinising the schools' interaction with national, regional and local decision-makers during the pandemic's development within the countries and across borders. Speakers/Panelists Laurent Chambaud École des Hautes Études en Santé Publique, Rennes, France Nadav Davidovitch Israeli Association of Public Health Physicians, Beer Sheva, Israel Ramune Kalediene Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Kaunas, Lithuania Henrique Barros Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal Key messages SPHs have got concrete potential to deliver crucial knowledge and skills to support both national governance and the public health systems necessary to combat COVID-19. The SPHs followed basic ethical rules and engaged in concrete anti-COVID-19 activities.