Between 24th and 26th of October, the Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical from the NOVA university of Lisbon, IHMT-NOVA, hosted a seminar to reflect on interventions for healthcare professionals to address vaccine hesitancy. The event was part of the Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy in Europe (VAX-TRUST) project.

This initiative gathered nearly two dozen researchers from the consortium and took as its starting point the results of the interventions implemented and evaluated in the project. The evaluation was carried out by the IHMT-NOVA team. The general objective of WP6 in the VAX-TRUST project was to design and implement the evaluation plan for the interventions developed. The interventions implemented in seven countries were analysed with the aim of raising health professionals’ awareness of the complexity of vaccine hesitancy and enabling them to have better interaction with hesitant parents.

“These were days of intense and participatory debate, in which evaluating the implementation of interventions proved essential”, emphasised the WP6 team coordinator, Tiago Correia.

From the consortium’s perspective, the interventions were implemented and subjected to an external evaluation process. The WP6 team analysed the effectiveness, utility and sustainability of the interventions and their contextual determinants, in order to identify what lessons for future interventions result from these specific processes. The lessons  learnt from the design, implementation and evaluation of each intervention will enable recommendations to be produced to strengthen future interventions.

Indeed, reflection on the challenges faced in the design and implementation of the interventions and, mostly, on the results achieved and the lessons that emerged from these journeys has made it possible to establish an overall perspective of these processes. This will contribute to the development of evidence-based interventions aimed at healthcare professionals, as well as European policies on the subject.