Mental disorders are one of the greatest public health challenges in terms of prevalence, burden of disease and disability and they cause major burden to economies, demanding policy action. More than one in six people across EU countries had a mental health issue in 2016, equivalent to about 84 million people. Moreover, in 2016, 165,000 deaths were attributed to mental and behavioural disorders, including self-harm, in EU.The burden of mental illness in the European WHO region is estimated to account for 14.4% of years lived with disability (YLDs) and 5.8% of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), placing thus mental illness as the second biggest contributor to YLDs after musculoskeletal disorders and as fourth in terms of DALYs in the WHO European region. Total costs pertaining to ill mental health have been gauged at more than 4% of GDP- or over 600 billion- across EU in 2015.
Many European countries have in place policies and programmes to address mental illness at different ages. Nevertheless, much more can be done to manage and promote mental health. Delivery of MH care services takes various forms across EU. Some countries still rely on big psychiatric hospitals, while others are delivering the care for MH mostly in community settings.This need for prioritizing mental health becomes more imperative, in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Converging evidence substantiate emerging mental health needs and difficulties faced by the mental health care systems to tackle them.
Building upon 15+ years of EU efforts including the Joint Action for Mental Health and Well-being the European Framework for Action and the EU Compass, the Members of the SGPP have selected two best practices (i) the Mental health reform in Belgium and (ii) Suicide prevention form Austria to be implemented during the new Joint Action on mental health, with an aim to extend the benefits of these best practices to participating countries.
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Topic: 3.4 Provide expertise and share good practices to assist Member States undertaking health system reforms by setting up a mechanism for pooling expertise at Union level, to provide sound and evidence-based advice on effective and efficient investment and innovation in public health and health systems. Facilitate the uptake of the results streaming from research projects supported under the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007-2013) and, in the long term, the activities which will be undertaken in the Framework Programme for Research and Innovation (Horizon 2020).
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For many years tobacco consumption has been considered the single most important cause of preventable morbidity wordwide. Efforts to reduce the devastation of tobacco related death and illness in the EU, consist of the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), the Tobacco Advertising Directive (TAD) and the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) from WHO.
The general objective of the Joint Action on Tobacco Control 2 will be to provide support of the implementation of TPD and TAD.
The specific objectives of the program are:
1. To ensure appropriate coordination and evaluation
2. To support dissemination of information to the target groups
3. To integrate the JATC results into national policies
4. To facilitate the exchange of good practices between Member States in order to improve implementation of the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) and related implementing and delegated acts in a number of areas of tobacco product and e-cigarette regulation, including laboratory capacity, analysis and assessment.
5. To ensure greater consistency in the application of the TPD to ensure a fair internal market for tobacco and related products, especially regarding market surveillance and enforcement.
6. Promote activities consistent with the objectives of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
7. To identify and assess the current legislation regarding, but not exclusively tobacco advertising and advertising of emerging products.
8. To identify and develop best practices regarding tobacco endgame strategies and for smoke-free environments.
As more and more countries step up in the game of tobacco control and prevention against tobacco related cancer, a unified Europe is more important than ever. The commitment is also showed in the approaching new EU Cancer Action Plan, where EU MS will stand together in the fight against tobacco. We, the partners of the JATC 2, are commited to championing this fight.
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Topic: 1.5 Actions required by, or contributing to, the implementation of Union legislation in the field of tobacco products, advertising and marketing. Such action may include activities aimed at ensuring the implementation, application, monitoring and review of that legislation.
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National Focal Points form an advisory system to participants that operate locally, and with the capacity of allowing equitable
participation in the EU Health Programme across countries.

To provide high quality services to potential applicants and project participants, NFPs should have a common sound knowledge of the rules and procedures of the EU Health Programme. Besides, they should be aware of other available initiatives at both national/regional and EU level that may complement or fit better the needs of national health communities. This last includes leading stakeholders to the right person or organisation, so they can be duly informed.

NFP4Health will contribute to create an innovative, sustainable and coherent network of NFPs that will increase the capacity of the Member States to design and create sustainable implementation actions that will boost the achievement of health objectives for the period
2021-2027. The network will create the best framework to contribute to the growth of innovative, efficient and sustainable health systems.
The main goal of increasing capacities of National Focal Points (NFPs) Joint Action is to create and maintain an innovative ecosystem to facilitate and support that European countries can achieve health objectives priorities established for the period 2021-2027. By developing and strengthening the NFPs capacities of European Countries, the Joint Action aims to provide quality access to the new EU4HEALTH Programme and to assure the complementarity with other regional, national and EU policies, funds and programmes. This action will allow maximizing efforts to leverage all available health funding, to guarantee the accessibility and sustainability of healthcare systems.

To really achieve the change it is necessary to help Member States to build their capacity to design sustainable implementation actions,
irrespective of the source of funding being EU4Health or other EU funding instruments.
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Tackling low vaccine coverage (VC) is a key area for action. Despite efforts, pockets of unvaccinated individuals persist in Europe. People in prison constitute a sizeable fraction of the population, in absolute number and for its rapid turnover. Incarcerated individuals largely belong to socially-deprived communities with low socio-economic status and education level, high disease burden and prevalence of risk behaviours; and often, sub-optimal access to care. Prisons may be a gateway to offer appropriate and high quality healthcare and vaccination services to individuals while in detention.
To respond to this public health priority, the RISE-Vac consortium brings together multisectorial skills, solid experience and well established networks in the prison health field, reflecting epidemiological and structural diversities of European context.
RISE-Vac aims at improving the health of prison population in Europe by promoting vaccine literacy (VL), enhancing vaccine offer and increasing vaccine uptake (VU). Using state-of-the-art methodologies, RISE-Vac will gather existing evidence on vaccination strategies and services targeting people in prison and combine it with prospectively collected data on (i) attitude and VL among prison population and staff; (ii) vaccination status and VU during incarceration. RISE-Vac will use a co-creation approach to develop information and training materials tailored to people in prison and staff to increase their VL. Models of vaccination delivery will be devised and piloted to respond to the needs of prison population, prison settings characteristics and national priorities. Benefits resulting from RISE-Vac activities will accrue also in the general population, increasing overall VC. By upholding the principle that prison health is public health, the RISE-Vac project will provide tools and data-driven, evidence-based options to guide European countries in improving health status of people in prison and European population at large.
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Topic: 2.2 Support capacity-building against health threats in Member States, including, where appropriate, cooperation with neighbouring countries: develop preparedness and response planning taking into account, and coordinating with, global initiatives, components of generic and specific preparedness planning, public health response coordination, non-binding approaches on vaccination; address the increasing health threats resulting from global population movements; develop guidelines on protective measures in an emergency situation, guidelines on information and guides to good practice; contribute to the framework for a voluntary mechanism, including the introduction of optimal vaccination coverage to effectively combat the resurgence in infectious diseases and for joint procurement of medical countermeasures; develop coherent communication strategies.
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Increased Access to Vaccination for Newly Arrived Migrants (NAM)- AcToVax4NAM aims to improve vaccination access for NAM making access conditions equitable & guaranteed. The project responds to 2020 WP’s specific topic “Increased access to vaccination for newly arrived migrants in first-line, transit & destination countries”. Objectives: (1) Describe immunization guidance, reception & vaccination offer systems for NAMs (2) Characterize system barriers hindering immunization of NAMs & identify possible solutions
-Reinforce networking capacity among institutional & non-institutional organizations & actors to address health literacy & cultural competency of the health care system with respect to NAM immunization. (3) Strengthen health literacy & responsiveness of organizations, health care professionals and other health operators (such as cultural mediators) to increase capacity building & cultural sensitivity of the health care system for promoting NAM’s active immunization (4) Develop country specific action-oriented flow charts to improve access to immunization comprising identified barriers & proposed solutions/tools/strategies validated by the target group (6) pilot test & evaluate country specific solutions to overcome system barriers emphasizing the life course approach, produce final recommendations & create networks of collaboration. AcToVax4NAM targets health and social care professionals and other related professionals such as mediators working with NAM. The final beneficiaries are NAMs. Expected results/outputs: (1) Updated knowledge on reception & vaccination systems/conceptual framework (2) Country specific information on system barriers & relevant solutions/logic flow charts/Database with tools (3) Capacity building to strengthen health literacy perspectives among target groups/related activities and training (4) Pilot testing solutions to overcome system barriers and demonstrate concrete and effective practices to increase coverage/Recommendations.
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Topic: 2.2 Support capacity-building against health threats in Member States, including, where appropriate, cooperation with neighbouring countries: develop preparedness and response planning taking into account, and coordinating with, global initiatives, components of generic and specific preparedness planning, public health response coordination, non-binding approaches on vaccination; address the increasing health threats resulting from global population movements; develop guidelines on protective measures in an emergency situation, guidelines on information and guides to good practice; contribute to the framework for a voluntary mechanism, including the introduction of optimal vaccination coverage to effectively combat the resurgence in infectious diseases and for joint procurement of medical countermeasures; develop coherent communication strategies.
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