Abstract
Vaccine hesitancy remains a dynamic public health challenge in Europe, but its determinants do not follow a single pattern. They vary across populations, vaccination programmes and national contexts, from high-risk adults and childhood immunisation systems to post-pandemic COVID-19 attitudes. Bringing these dimensions together is essential for understanding how hesitancy evolves and for developing public health responses that are both evidence-based and context-sensitive. This scientific session aims to present complementary evidence on patterns, determinants and trends in vaccine hesitancy from different European countries and target groups. By bringing together data on chronic conditions, childhood immunization, temporal changes in COVID-19 hesitancy, and the roles of trust and urbanization, the session offers a comparative perspective on how hesitancy is shaped across populations, vaccines and contexts. Building on a line of work developed within the European Public Health Conference over the past four years, and on collaboration across countries and EUPHA sections, the session brings forward timely evidence on the evolving nature of vaccine hesitancy and its public health implications in Europe. The first presentation will present evidence from Italy on vaccine hesitancy among adults with chronic conditions, based on findings from the INF-ACT survey. It will show that hesitancy is common in this high-risk population and strongly linked to safety concerns, underlining the need for trust-based communication and tailored immunisation strategies. The second presentation will address attitudes toward childhood vaccination in Hungary, where support for mandatory vaccination remains high. It will highlight how vaccine confidence, more than sociodemographic factors, sustains support for mandatory policies in a well-established immunisation system. The third presentation will examine COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Italy through a comparison between 2021 and 2024. It will provide a temporal perspective on post-pandemic changes in public attitudes, including a marked decline in willingness to receive annual booster doses. The fourth presentation will focus on Türkiye, where a nationwide study investigated vaccine hesitancy in relation to professional trust and urbanisation. It will highlight how structural factors shape hesitancy and how attitudes toward vaccination do not always correspond to actual vaccination behaviour. Each presentation will be followed by a brief moderated Q&A, and the closing discussion will focus on shared patterns, contextual differences and implications for public health policy and practice across Europe.
Key messages
• Vaccine hesitancy in Europe reflects both shared patterns and context-specific drivers across populations, vaccines and settings.
• Comparative evidence on trust, safety concerns and temporal change can inform more tailored public health responses.