ECDC looks into future challenges for public health agencies

An assessment has looked at a range of threats and challenges that public health organizations may face in the future, including the impact on foodborne infections.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) started a foresight process in 2022 to consider a range of potential scenarios and to improve preparedness and resilience to such threats. This was in recognition of the volatility and complexity of the systems surrounding public health.

Six focus groups covered topics such as emerging, vector-borne, and food and water-borne diseases.

The process began by horizon scanning for global trends relevant for public health and assessing their driving forces. It then interpreted the impact, uncertainties and implications of alternative pathways toward 2040 to develop images of different possible futures from the resulting conditions, as well as their associated challenges for infectious disease prevention and control.

It concluded with imagining what a robust future organization would look like under such conditions, to assess what actions should be taken and stress-testing these steps under the range of plausible operational conditions.

Potential food safety impact
Five common challenges were identified including if climate change persists or worsens. This aggravates infectious diseases in various ways, such as higher risks of zoonotic diseases, higher incidence of food and water borne infections, and the emergence of novel pathogens, highlighting the importance of One Health approaches.

Challenges for implementing disease prevention would be amplified with lower public trust and higher societal fragmentation. The proliferation of misinformation exacerbates these difficulties. Data, digitalization, and new technologies impact disease surveillance, access to healthcare services, and information ecosystems. Artificial Intelligence (AI) could create opportunities and risks for disease prevention and control.

Actions include strengthening external communications and outreach capabilities to foster public trust as well as engaging with local populations who are more exposed to the identified threats to build trust, access to data, and provide advice that will be more readily received and followed.

Six scenarios described potential operating environments for public health professionals in Europe in 2040. Under one scenario, there is a higher incidence of foodborne disease from production and supply chain issues and late detection of illegally imported contaminated food from outside the EU. Under another, there is an increased risk for food safety and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) issues.

According to the report, actions to take include enhance monitoring of climate-sensitive diseases; promote knowledge and public awareness of AMR; address potential gaps in disease surveillance; ensure good quality of epidemiological data; and use novel technologies in surveillance.

As part of an assessment of the actions, improving quality of epidemiological data via training to national authorities and other stakeholders and establishing an ECDC climate change team were judged to be highly relevant.

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