News

RIVER-EU country coordinators from the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University (UPJS), participated in a roundtable in Košice in March that was dedicated to the fight against HPV caused cancers.

Populations that come from lower socio-economic backgrounds or migrant communities, or belong to cultural or religious minorities usually achieve substantially lower vaccine uptake compared to the general population

Many things depend on the power of conversation – including vaccine equity. A reliable way to foster unity and close the inequality gap is to form strong relationships with underserved populations.

Vaccination is one of the most essential tools available to ensure population health and wellbeing. However, vaccination programmes face enduring challenges, namely inequalities in vaccine access and vaccine hesitancy.

Vaccinations have been shown to reduce health inequality worldwide. However, wide gaps in vaccine uptake remain among different population groups.

The third RIVER-EU newsletter is out! Among other things, we invite you to read about our progress in the past six months and learn more about the field work from researchers working with the selected underserved communities in Slovakia, Finland, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands, human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination was introduced in 2010 in the national immunization programme, targeted towards adolescent girls in the year they turned 13 years old. The selected vaccine is bivalent, targeting HPV types 16 and 18. In 2022, the HPV vaccination programme was extended to boys, with the first round of vaccinations held in March and April 2022.

Within the RIVER-EU project, a series of qualitative studies were conducted to explore health system barriers to vaccination in selected underserved communities. In Slovakia, the study described barriers to human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination among girls from marginalized Roma communities from the perspective of Roma girls, their parents, and professionals involved in HPV vaccination who serve this population.

Roma are the largest and most disadvantaged ethnic minority in Europe. For centuries, the history of Roma has been marked by intolerance, punitive policies, assimilation and social engineering which has ultimately resulted in the development of marginalized Roma communities.