Excessive information on health during the COVID-19 pandemic, often false and lacking rigour, led the World Health Organization (WHO) to popularise the term ‘infodemic’, as a wake-up call on the need to provide the public with reliable sources and orientation to prevent the spread of rumours on an issue of public interest. Four years on, over 450 professionals from health institutions, physicians, researchers and journalists from around the world came together in Barcelona on 24 and 25 October at the 1st International Congress on Health Communication, organised by Vall d’Hebron University Hospital with the support of the European University Hospital Alliance (EUHA) and in conjunction with Medtronic. Issues such as communicating health policies, relations between health institutions and professionals and the media and journalists, creating new narratives, fake news, the role of artificial intelligence, communication crises and the role of patients in spreading content were the subjects of analysis. ‘Beyond the success in terms of participation, the 1st International Congress on Health Communication has allowed us to establish a framework for debate to take a deeper, more global look at the main challenges and opportunities facing health communication’, commented Fran Garcia, Director of Communication, Corporate Strategy and Citizen Engagement, adding that ‘there is more interest than ever in information on science and medicine; we have already won the battle for public attention. Now it is our turn to work to consolidate this congress and increase its international perspective. Getting quality information to the public, through traditional or social media, generating dynamic content and putting patients at the centre of the narrative are some of the topics tackled over these two highly productive days’.

The conclusions from the 1st International Congress on Health Communication will be used to draw up a Guide to Health Communication, which will be share with the EUHA. The first day of the congress, 24 October, started with the European, Spanish and Catalan authorities attending and a first round-table debate on government health communication policies, which are rolled out in increasingly complex environments. The debate, chaired by Fred Balvert, a strategic science communicator at the Erasmus University Medical Centre Rotterdam, discussed the challenges in disseminating national and European health policies, the strategic lines in different countries, the role of hospitals, and the most effective way to get information directly to the public, either through social media or campaigns. Top speakers such as Bhanu Bhatnagar, Press and Media Relations Officer with the WHO Regional Office for Europe, Marie-Agnes Heine, Head of the Communication Department at the European Medicines Agency, Chantal Verdonschot, Senior Communications Coordinator at EuroHealthNet, Abraham de Moral, Director of Communication with the Catalan Government Ministry of Health and the expert Mariachiara Tallacchini, from the University of Piacenza (Italy), all presented their perspectives. They all agreed that institutions must provide the public with scientific knowledge, not as a closed product, but as a process through which they themselves reach their conclusions. They also stressed the need for two-way communication, in which the public are familiar with mechanisms to have their voice heard.

The second round table, chaired by Jens Hjalte Madsen Løgstrup, Head of Communication at Aarhus University Hospital, analysed how institutions interact with the media and journalists, a relationship that needs to be fluid in democratic societies, even if this is not always easy. The heads of communications from institutions such as Hôpitaux de París (France) and Kings’s Health Partners London (United Kingdom), Isabelle Jourdan and Christie Norris, respectively, exchanged their impressions with journalists. The corporate communication experts focussed on strategies to combine agility in response while offering quality information and maintaining the institution’s reputation. The journalists stressed the need for transparency and access to experts. The day ended with an analysis of marketing campaigns, which create interesting narratives to bring health closer to the public. Every day, 50,000 patients enter the doors of Vall d’Hebron, each one with a story to discover and explain. Camil Roca, CEO of K1000, the agency responsible for the La Marató charity fund-raising event on the Catalan television channel TV3, and Roxane Philippe, General Manager of HAVAS Red Health, also shared cases that had reached the hearts of the public.

The second day of the congress started with a round table on combating fake news in health communication. Even though precision in this field is key, attacks from the spread fake or inflated news stories are a constant threat. Participating in the round table were Carlo Martini, Professor of Philosophy in health sciences at San Raffaele University (Italy); Michele Cantazaro, a freelance journalist working with various outlets, including El Periódico de Catalunya; Carlos Mateos, an expert in fake news with the ConSalud web portal, director of the COM Salut communication agency and coordinator of #SaludsinBulos; Sigrid März, a science journalist and former editor of MedWatch; and Dr Javier de Castro, Head of Medical Oncology at the La Paz University Hospital (Madrid). They focussed on how medical and research centres, professionals and scientists have a much more important role to play in the digital age with regard to validating and checking information on health. Artificial intelligence, which can be used both to generate and detect fake news, was the centre of much of the debate. AI was the topic for an entire block, as it is already having an impact on communication strategies and is a tool for reaching potential audiences more successfully. Laia Morales, an AI training consultant and the founder of Bexperience, held a workshop on the topic.

At a round table chaired by Fran Garcia, speakers from the communication departments of the main European Hospitals analysed the crisis in communication. Maintaining a vision for the medium term, despite immediate urgency, and keeping sight of the fact that all crises are an opportunity to flex communicative muscle and come out stronger was the opinion shared by the different experts: Lars Elgård, Press Officer at Aarhus University Hospital (Denmark); Ann Lemaître, Senior Press Officer at UZ Leuven (Belgium); Hanna Mellbin, Head of Strategic Communications at Karolinska University Hospital (Sweden); Laia Brufau, Communications Director at the Institut Català de la Salut (ICS); and Oscar Franco, Director of Public Health, University Medical Centre Utrecht, and Adjunct Professor at Harvard University.

The fundamental role of patients, the public and leading figures in health communication was the topic for the next block, featuring the testimony of Audrey Mash, whose story made headlines around the world when she was resuscitated at Vall d’Hebron after six hours of cardiac arrest due to hypothermia. In this block, Sarah Neville, Global Health Editor with the Financial Times and named 2024 health journalist of the year in the United Kingdom, stressed that patients are the best ambassadors for health communication, as they speak the same language as the public. In the afternoon, a Meet the Expert session was held to bring science closer to the attendees, with an opportunity to interact directly with some of the speakers and participants from the round tables and workshops.

Patients’ associations also shared their strategies in a block which notably featured the Care Connect experience, introduced by Dr Olga Simó, Diabetes Technology Unit Coordinator at Vall d’Hebron Hospital, together with Medtronic. The last round table at the congress produced a lively debate on what journalists look for and what they find when dealing with doctors and health institutions. Both parties need each other to spread scientific advances and make them understandable to the public. Prominent journalists, such as Josep Corbella from La Vanguardia (Catalonia), Korinna Hennig from NDR Info (Germany) and Géraldine Zamansky (France 59), agreed with the scientists Dr Josep Tabernero (Vall d’Hebron Barcelona Hospital Campus), Dr Purvi Parwani, cardiologist at Loma Linda (California, USA) and Judit Balazs, psychiatrist at Eotvos Lorand University, in Budapest (Hungary) on the need to work together with the shared goal of improving scientific knowledge.