PAFSE project will engage schools, universities, enterprises and non-formal education providers in building science clusters that boost young people's awareness of public health challenges, protective factors and patterns of risky behaviour, and the role they can play in their community preparedness. School-based activities will contribute to students’ and citizens’ literacy concerning public health threats that need to be approached by concerted action, with a focus on epidemics. Challenges such as child obesity, chronic illness, climate change and vaccine hesitancy will be included in the educational provisions. PAFSE will strengthen populations’ literacy and mitigate risks, having students play a central role as public health ambassadors, early adopters and spreaders of scientific knowledge.

PAFSE will engage a range of community actors, including universities, museums, patients associations, public health authorities, pharmacies, labs, enterprises and by doing that, impact on children and citizens disposition to follow STEM studies and broaden their awareness of possible life-science related careers.

Impact:

PAFSE will create partnerships between schools, universities, civil society organisations, research institutions and families in order to collaborate in addressing public health issues, with emphasis on communicable diseases, through launching educational challenges such as using mathematics to predict the spreading of a transmissible disease, scientific inquiry to track and influence safety behaviours in epidemics or explaining the lifecycle of a coronavirus, and engaging students in public discourse.