8.C. Round table: Round table: COVID-19: What have we learned? What are the public health challenges?

Abstract

If there ever was a public health problem where we could learn a lot about public health research, practice, policy and communication, it is the COVID-19 pandemic. With increased knowledge about the spread, the prevention measures, treatment and vaccination, a lot of research on COVID-19 has been and is being published. Looking for COVID-19 articles on google scholar leads to over 3.6 million articles found. Nearly all research published on COVID-19 has been made publicly accessible to allow the latest research to be available for politicians, policymakers, practitioners and laymen.The quality of the research is sometimes good, sometimes less good (see our recent viewpoints https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/issue/30/5?browseBy=volume). But with the increase in research, it becomes more difficult to find which research is old, outdated and which is new.Furthermore, all sorts of media have covered the pandemic extensively, in many journals one can find very good reviews and articles by serious journalists, but in many cases, also rumours, guesses and fake news. On top of becoming tired of information overload, it is also more and more difficult to keep track of the development of the research. EUPHA - therefore - decided to publish a supplement to the European Journal of Public Health looking at specific health issues and specific groups that were affected by the pandemic. The supplement aims to present short summaries and updates on some key issues of public health relevance. Topics included range from environment, mental health, legal and ethical issues, health workforce, health inequalities, accountability, opening up the economy and such.In this Round Table, we will have a number of authors from the EJPH supplement to discuss their findings and find some common grounds on what we have learned from COVID-19 and how to move forward.Speakers/Panelists Martin McKee LSHTM, London, UK Elena Petelos Clinic of Social and Family Medicine, Department of Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece Julian Mamo Public Health Department, University of Malta, Valletta, Malta Ellen Kuhlmann Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Hannover, Germany Els Maeckelberghe Wenckebach Institute for Medical Education and Training, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands Key messages Learning from this pandemic for future planning is essential.Touching all fields affected by COVID-19 to plan for the future is necessary.