EPH Conference statement commitment 3 & 4: ““We champion transparent, participatory policymaking that places health and well-being at the centre and empowers communities to shape their environments.
In an age of misinformation, we are committed to evidence-based communication, listening to genuine concerns, and protecting public discourse from manipulation.”
Protecting health depends not only on effective services, but also on how decisions are made. WHO Europe has long emphasised that governance is a determinant of health, highlighting the importance of transparency, accountability, and whole-of-society approaches in shaping fair and effective policies (Kickbusch & Gleicher, 2012). Strong governance strengthens trust, supports policy coherence, and enables collaboration across sectors.
At a European governance level, the European Union’s strengthened Code of Conduct on Disinformation, linked to the Digital Services Act, introduces transparency, reporting, and monitoring commitments for large platforms (European Commission, 2025). While these measures contribute to greater accountability and visibility in the digital environment, they are not resolving upstream structural drivers.
On that note, participation of communities is perceived as key. The WHO handbook on social participation for universal health coverage underscores that voice, agency, and empowerment are not optional add-ons, but essential components of legitimate and sustainable health systems (World Health Organization, 2021). When communities are meaningfully involved in decision-making, policies are more responsive, equitable, and grounded in lived experience.
Now again, public health and its institutions, governments and science itself highly depend on the trust citizens, patients and communities place in them. Misinformation and disinformation increasingly shape how people interpret vaccines, prevention and scientific uncertainty. More and more, algorithms and large language models shape what people read, hear and believe, often prioritising attention and emotional reaction over accuracy. WHO has identified infodemics as a structural public health challenge, requiring more than corrective messaging. Instead, calling for strengthened risk communication systems, transparency, and again, community engagement (World Health Organization, 2022).
Moving beyond the infodemic, Purnat et al. (2026) emphasize, trust cannot be restored through fact-checking or a shift in risk communication, but requires a relational approach. They describe ‘trust as a verb’, something built through everyday interactions, visible reasoning, and respectful engagement with lived experience. Trust grows when institutions listen, acknowledge uncertainty, explain how decisions are made, and create space for shared deliberation (Purnat et al., 2026). Public health & health-care professionals are not the ones to redesign the platforms, but they can respond by ensuring continuity of care, making high-quality information locally accessible and understandable, and recognising that patients arrive embedded in their complex information system (Winters et al., 2025).
From local to global level, let us know how you tackle the challenges on trust, governance, mis- and disinformation and stronger engagement of community & lived experiences in public health.