International Affairs, Policy, Evaluation and Digitialisation, Gesundheit Österreich GmbH, Vienna, Austria.
EU Health Information System Department, Sciensano, Brussels, Belgium.
Eur J Public Health. 2024 Jul 1;34(Supplement_1):i81-i86. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/ckae035.
The COVID-19 pandemic demanded quick exchanges between experts and institutions supporting governments to provide evidence-based information in response to the crisis. Initially, there was no regular cross-country forum in the field of population health. This paper describes the set-up and benefits of implementing such a forum.
A group of public health practitioners from academia, national public health institutes and ministries of health decided in April 2020 to meet bi-monthly to discuss a vast array of population health topics in a structured format called a Rapid Exchange Forum (REF). An ad-hoc mailing group was established to collect responses to questions brought forward in the forum from at least five countries within 24 h. This endeavour, which evolved as network of networks was awarded an EU grant in autumn 2020 and was called PHIRI (Population Health Information Research Infrastructure).
Responses from up to 31 countries were compiled and shared immediately via the European Health Information Portal. This exchange was complemented by special REFs that focused on the advantages and disadvantages of vaccination, for example. By July 2023, 54 REFs had taken place with topics going beyond COVID-19.
The REF demonstrated its value for quick yet evidence-based cross-country exchange in times of crisis and was highly appreciated by countries and European Commission. It demonstrated its sustainability even after the acute crisis by expanding the topics covered and managing to continue exchange with the aim of capacity building and mutual learning, making it a true EU response and coordination mechanism.
COVID-19 大流行要求专家和支持政府的机构之间迅速交流，以便提供基于证据的信息来应对危机。最初，在人口健康领域没有定期的跨国论坛。本文介绍了设立和实施此类论坛的好处。
2020 年 4 月，一群来自学术界、国家公共卫生研究所和卫生部的公共卫生从业者决定每两个月举行一次会议，以结构化的形式讨论广泛的人口健康主题，这种形式称为快速交流论坛（REF）。成立了一个特别的邮件组，在 24 小时内从至少五个国家收集论坛上提出的问题的答复。这项工作发展成为一个网络，于 2020 年秋季获得欧盟赠款，并被称为 PHIRI（人口健康信息研究基础设施）。
来自多达 31 个国家的答复被汇编并立即通过欧洲卫生信息门户共享。这种交流还通过特别的 REF 得到补充，例如，重点讨论接种疫苗的优缺点。截至 2023 年 7 月，已经举行了 54 次 REF，主题不仅限于 COVID-19。
REF 证明了其在危机时期快速进行基于证据的跨国交流的价值，受到了各国和欧盟委员会的高度赞赏。它通过扩大涵盖的主题并努力继续交流以实现能力建设和相互学习，证明了其可持续性，即使在急性危机之后，这使其成为真正的欧盟应对和协调机制。
