Work Package 1
In the last update on Work Package 1, it was reported that the recruitment of patients and patient follow-up in the prospective study has continued well in the project’s third year.
While patient enrolment is underway, the project team is making adjustments to limit the number of COVID cases enrolled, to avoid an over-representation of COVID cases and under-representation of other infections. With regards to the retrospective study, the statistical analysis plan has been prepared, and the plan details how data from the retrospective study will be managed and analyzed, and what output is expected from the analysis. Data extraction for Denmark is currently ongoing, as the data from the Valencia region is being analyzed.
Work Package 2
In the last update on Work Package 2, we shared that the vaccination study had been completed. One of the goals of the vaccination study is to research if frailty parameters may be predictive of vaccination response. In the latest update they provided analysis of the data.
Work Package 3
Looking towards Year Four, the VITALO (static) model will be populated and compared with data from four countries/regions namely: The Netherlands, Flanders, Serbia and Spain. The RIVM (National Institute for Public Health and the Environment) will work on an extension of the CORE (dynamic) model aimed at ageing, demographic shift and frailty, which can be used at a later stage to tackle the more specific questions of the VITAL project, done by the UMCG (University Medical Center Groningen). The RIVM and UMCG will meet monthly to discuss further.
Work Package 4
In the last update of Work Package 4, the team shared that their qualitative evidence synthesis, titled “Healthcare workers’ perceptions and experiences of communicating with people over 50 years of age about vaccination’’ was published. However, due to poor trial reporting, it is often difficult to assess whether factors identified as potentially important in qualitative studies have been considered in randomized trials. It was decided to use the qualitative evidence synthesis findings to encourage better reporting of vaccination communication interventions in trials by developing an elaboration of the TIDieR (Template for Intervention Description and Replication) checklist for intervention reporting. This study and its outcomes are published in the BMC journal.
On 17 March 2022, the project hosted a 30-minute webinar to inform external stakeholders around vaccination for ageing adults. The webinar provided an overview on the project’s objectives and expected results, and aimed at identifying areas for future potential collaboration related to HCPs education and training on the vaccination of older adults.
Work Package 5
The Grant Management Team is pleased to announce that the periodic reporting and all financial statements for year 3 (2021) have been submitted on time, and pending approval from IMI.
