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The European Journal of Public Health Advance Access originally published online on June 6, 2008
The European Journal of Public Health 2008 18(5):441-447; doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckn019
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© 2008. The Author(s)
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Commentary

A network strategy to advance public health in Europe

Jan C. Semenza1, Franklin Apfel2, Tamsin Rose2 and Johan Giesecke1

1 Unit of Scientific Advice, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Tomtebodavägen 11A, S-171 83 Stockholm, Sweden
2 World Health Communication Associates, Little Harborne, Church Lane, Compton Bishop, AXBRIDGE, Somerset, BS26 2HD, UK

Correspondence: Prof. Jan C. Semenza, PhD, MPH, MS, Senior Expert, Unit of Scientific Advice, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Tomtebodavägen 11A, S-171 83 Stockholm, Sweden, tel: +46 (0)8-586-01-217, fax: +46 (0)8-58-60-1001, e-mail: Jan.Semenza@ecdc.europa.eu

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.


   Introduction
 
Europe has a long tradition of preventing disease and prolonging life expectancy through organized public health interventions. Nevertheless, considerable challenges remain in a European Union that permits free movement of goods, services, money and people. While pathogens travel freely across borders, national control measures do so to a lesser extent. Thus, public health is hampered by societal, economic, financial and cultural differences and suboptimal collaboration between responsible agencies. These challenges became initially apparent during the SARS emergency and subsequently during the avian influenza threat that drew a lot of media attention. With the foresight to enhance preparedness and response to communicable disease threats the European Union created a specialized agency in Stockholm, Sweden. This new EU agency, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), has the mandate to control communicable diseases in Europe. Since the existing measures were inadequate to deal with multi-country outbreaks, ECDC strives to assess . . . [Full Text of this Article]


   Methods
 

   Results
 
Addressing public health concerns

   Discussion
 
Advancing cross-border integration
Advancing evidence-based public health in Europe
Networking for public health problem solving
Limitations and obstacles to inter-association cooperation
Next steps

   Conclusion
 

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