John Launer: The health benefits of European collaboration

I recently taught a course in Bergen, Norway, for postgraduate students in public health from around Europe. They had all signed up for an EU funded programme about preparing for the next pandemic or global health crisis. Around half of the participants were health professionals by training: doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, and so on. The others were non-clinicians such as health service managers, social scientists, and educators. Many were researching how to support marginalised or disaffected groups, including migrants, sex workers, and communities suspicious of vaccines.I have a longstanding interest in communication across different belief systems and world views, and my role was to stimulate discussion about how to respond to the flood of misinformation and conspiracy theories that can threaten to derail public health efforts. We had some of the most intelligent conversations I can remember about the tensions between numbers and narratives, persuasion and listening, fear and trust, politics...