GMJ Knowledge Hub | UEMS Public Health Section Platform | Public Health Institute of Georgia (PHIG)
The official academic and knowledge-sharing platform of the Public Health Section of the European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS), hosted by the Georgian Medical Journal (GMJ) and supported by the Public Health Institute of Georgia (PHIG). This platform provides structured access to European public health policy, workforce frameworks, country profiles, and shared evidence, bridging research, policy, and practice across diverse European health system contexts.
Scope: 10 sections • UEMS • WHO Europe • ECDC • EU Health Union • Member Countries • Updated: April 2026 • Countries: gmj.ge/index.php/pub/countries • GMJ: gmj.ge
Contents
I. UEMS Public Health Section — Origins, Mandate and Governance • II. Member Countries — National Profiles and Representatives • III. European Public Health Policy Architecture • IV. Workforce Development and Medical Training • V. Health System Resilience and Emergency Preparedness • VI. Prevention, NCDs and Health Promotion • VII. Cross-Border Health, Mobility and EU Health Rights • VIII. Digital Health and Innovation in Public Health • IX. Monitoring, Data Platforms and European Health Intelligence • X. GMJ Academic Platform and Resources
UEMS
The European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS), established in 1958, is the principal European professional organisation representing more than 1.6 million medical specialists through over 40 specialist sections and boards. The UEMS Public Health Section contributes to strengthening public health as a foundational pillar of European health systems, with a mandate encompassing workforce development, prevention, health system resilience, and cross-border policy coordination.
uems.euWelcoming Statement — UEMS Public Health Section Leadership
Public health systems across Europe are undergoing profound transformation in response to demographic change, increasing population mobility, emerging health threats, and growing system complexity. In this evolving landscape, strengthening cooperation, professional standards, and the systematic exchange of knowledge across countries is essential to ensure resilient, equitable, and sustainable health systems.
The UEMS Public Health Section Platform represents a strategic contribution to advancing coordinated public health action at the European level. It provides a structured academic and professional environment in which experts, institutions, and countries can engage in continuous dialogue, share evidence, and support the development of effective, context-sensitive, and forward-looking policy responses.
Professor Kristiina Patja, MD, MPH, PhD — Chair, UEMS Public Health Section (Finland)
Professor Giorgi Pkhakadze, MD, MPH, PhD — Secretary and Treasurer, UEMS Public Health Section (Georgia)
Source: European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS) | Type: Institutional Hub | Year: Active (est. 1958)
UEMS is the principal European body representing medical specialists, established in Brussels in 1958 and now encompassing more than 1.6 million specialists across Europe through over 40 specialist sections and boards. UEMS plays a central role in harmonising postgraduate medical training standards, advancing continuous professional development, and promoting quality and patient safety across European health systems. Its specialist sections define European Training Requirements (ETRs) and European Board Examinations that set the benchmark for specialist competency recognition across Member States.
View Resource Specialist SectionsSource: UEMS Public Health Section | Type: Section Hub | Year: Active
The UEMS Public Health Section represents public health specialists across European Member States, contributing to the harmonisation of public health training, competency standards, and professional practice. Its mandate encompasses health system resilience, workforce development, prevention policy, and cross-border coordination, with particular emphasis on alignment with EU health policy priorities and global health commitments under the WHO European Region and the Sustainable Development Goals framework.
View ResourceSource: European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS) | Type: Training Standards Framework | Year: Active
UEMS European Training Requirements define the competency standards, curricular content, and duration of specialist training programmes across Europe, ensuring comparability and mutual recognition of qualifications. The Public Health Section ETR framework establishes the minimum requirements for postgraduate training in public health medicine, covering core competencies in epidemiology, health policy, health systems, environmental health, and communicable disease control.
View ResourceASPHER — European Core Competencies and Values Framework for Public Health
Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER) | Competency Framework | Active
EUPHA — European Public Health Association: Sections and Working Groups
European Public Health Association (EUPHA) | Professional Network | Active
Member Countries
Each member country of the UEMS Public Health Section has a dedicated space within this platform, presenting national representatives, institutional structures, strategic public health priorities, and policy innovations. The country directory provides the primary access point for cross-country knowledge exchange within the UEMS Public Health Section network.
gmj.ge/index.php/pub/countriesSource: Georgian Medical Journal (GMJ) / UEMS Public Health Section | Type: Country Directory | Year: Active
The country directory is the central hub of the UEMS Public Health Section Platform, providing dedicated pages for each member country. Each country page presents national representatives and their institutional affiliations, current public health priorities and strategic developments, policy innovations and country-level experiences, and enhanced visibility of national expertise within the European context. The directory is continuously updated to reflect new memberships, representative changes, and national developments, and is designed to facilitate direct contact and collaborative engagement across the Section network.
Visit Country DirectorySource: UEMS Public Health Section / GMJ | Type: Platform Guide | Year: Active
The platform is organised into three core components. The Countries component provides dedicated national pages for member country representatives and institutional frameworks. The News component offers a continuously updated stream of activities, announcements, and policy developments from across the Section. The Resources component integrates policy frameworks, reports, academic materials, technical guidance, and professional tools. The platform is open to member countries of the UEMS Public Health Section, their representatives and experts, and prospective member and collaborating institutions.
Explore PlatformSource: European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (WHO / European Commission / World Bank) | Type: Country Health Systems Research Platform | Year: Active
The European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies produces the definitive comparative analyses of health systems across European countries, including the widely-cited Health Systems in Transition (HiT) country profiles covering governance, financing, service delivery, and health workforce. These resources provide the academic and policy baseline for contextualising national public health developments documented in the UEMS platform country pages, enabling evidence-based cross-country comparison and policy learning.
View Resource HiT ProfilesOECD Health at a Glance: Europe — Country Indicators and Comparative Analysis
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) | Biennial Report | Biennial
EU Policy
The European public health policy landscape is structured around three principal institutional architectures: the European Health Union (EU4Health, HERA), the WHO European Region, and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Together these provide the normative, financial, and technical infrastructure within which UEMS Public Health Section activities and member country priorities are embedded.
European Health Union → health.ec.europa.euSource: European Commission / DG SANTE | Type: Policy Framework Hub | Year: Active (launched 2020)
The European Health Union, launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, represents the most ambitious expansion of EU health competence since the Maastricht Treaty, providing new legal and institutional foundations for collective action on health security, health crisis preparedness, medical countermeasures, and the European Health Data Space. It constitutes the overarching policy framework within which EU4Health, HERA, and strengthened ECDC mandates operate, and defines the direction of European public health governance for the decade ahead.
View ResourceSource: European Commission / Health and Food Safety Directorate (DG SANTE) / HADEA | Type: EU Funding Programme | Year: 2021–2027
EU4Health is the European Union’s flagship health programme with a budget of €5.1 billion for 2021–2027, representing the largest-ever EU investment in health. It funds actions on health crisis preparedness, non-communicable diseases, cancer, antimicrobial resistance, digital health, and health system strengthening across Member States. EU4Health directly finances many of the public health priorities addressed by the UEMS Public Health Section, including workforce capacity, data infrastructure, and cross-border health threats.
View ResourceSource: World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe) | Type: Regional Policy Framework | Year: Active
WHO Europe serves 53 Member States across the European Region and provides the primary normative and technical framework for public health policy, health systems strengthening, and health workforce development outside the EU institutional structure. Its European Programme of Work (EPW) — currently EPW 2020–2025 “United Action for Better Health in Europe” — defines regional health priorities, including universal health coverage, health security, and the social determinants of health, directly informing UEMS Public Health Section policy positions.
View Resource EPW 2020–2025Source: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) | Type: EU Agency Hub | Year: Active (est. 2004)
ECDC is the European Union’s agency responsible for identifying, assessing, and communicating threats to human health from communicable diseases. Established in 2004, it provides epidemiological surveillance, scientific advice, early warning, and technical assistance to Member States and EU institutions. Its mandate was significantly strengthened by the European Health Union regulations of 2022, including expanded powers for cross-border health threat response, public health workforce competency development, and vaccination. ECDC data and guidance directly inform UEMS Public Health Section positions on communicable disease, AMR, and health security.
View ResourceEuropean Commission DG SANTE — Health and Food Safety Policy Hub
European Commission, Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety | Policy Hub | Active
Workforce
A well-trained, competent, and equitably distributed public health workforce is the foundational prerequisite for resilient European health systems. This section covers the principal frameworks for public health workforce development, postgraduate medical training standards, competency definitions, and the European policy landscape for health workforce planning.
WHO Europe → Health WorkforceSource: World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe) | Type: Regional Strategy | Year: Active
WHO Europe’s health workforce strategy provides the normative framework for addressing health workforce shortages, maldistribution, and competency gaps across the 53-country European Region. It aligns with the global WHO Health Workforce 2030 strategy and directly informs EU policy on health workforce planning. Specific attention is given to public health specialist supply, migration patterns, and the competency requirements for emerging public health challenges including pandemic preparedness and digital health.
View ResourceSource: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) | Type: Competency Framework | Year: Active
The ECDC public health workforce competency framework defines the essential competencies required for public health professionals in areas of health security, epidemiology, surveillance, outbreak investigation, and risk communication. It provides the operational foundation for the ECDC Fellowship Programme (EPIET and EUPHEM) and directly informs UEMS training standards through its specification of technical, scientific, and leadership competencies relevant to the European public health specialist context.
View ResourceECDC Fellowship Programme — EPIET and EUPHEM
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) | Fellowship Programme | Active
ASPHER — European List of Public Health Core Competencies
Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER) | Competency Framework | Active
WHO Global Health Workforce 2030 Strategy
World Health Organization (WHO) | Global Strategy | 2016
Health Security
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed significant vulnerabilities in European health system resilience and cross-border preparedness coordination. This section covers the strengthened EU health security architecture, including HERA, the European Health Emergency and Response Authority, alongside WHO International Health Regulations compliance, ECDC preparedness frameworks, and national resilience assessment tools.
HERA → health.ec.europa.euSource: European Commission | Type: EU Agency | Year: Active (established 2021)
HERA was established in 2021 as the European Commission’s authority for health emergency preparedness and response, tasked with anticipating, preventing, detecting, and responding rapidly to cross-border health threats. It coordinates the development and procurement of medical countermeasures — including vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics — and strengthens the EU’s capacity for joint response to serious cross-border health threats. HERA directly engages with UEMS member country public health capacities through its preparedness assessments and countermeasure deployment mechanisms.
View ResourceSource: World Health Organization (WHO) | Type: International Legal Framework and Assessment Tool | Year: Active (IHR 2005; JEE ongoing)
The International Health Regulations (IHR 2005) constitute the primary international legal framework governing global health security, requiring all WHO Member States to develop, strengthen, and maintain core capacities for surveillance, response, and risk communication. Joint External Evaluations (JEEs) provide independent assessments of Member States’ IHR capacities, producing country-specific data on preparedness gaps that directly inform national public health planning and UEMS member country policy priorities.
View Resource JEE PortalECDC Health Security — Preparedness, Surveillance and Response
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) | Health Security Platform | Active
European Health Security Committee — Cross-Border Threat Coordination
European Commission | Intergovernmental Coordination Mechanism | Active
Prevention and NCDs
Non-communicable diseases account for more than 80% of mortality in the WHO European Region. Prevention and health promotion represent the primary instruments for addressing this burden, and are central to UEMS Public Health Section engagement with both EU health policy and national health system priorities. This section covers the major European prevention frameworks, NCD strategies, cancer plans, and health promotion evidence bases.
WHO Europe → NCDsSource: World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe) | Type: Regional Action Plan | Year: 2022–2030
The WHO European Action Plan on NCDs 2022–2030 provides the regional policy framework for addressing the NCD burden across all 53 Member States of the European Region. It covers cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and mental health, with a strong focus on addressing common risk factors (tobacco, alcohol, physical inactivity, unhealthy diets, and air pollution), reducing health inequalities, and integrating NCD prevention within primary care and public health systems. The Action Plan directly frames UEMS Public Health Section priorities on preventive medicine and health promotion.
View ResourceSource: European Commission | Type: EU Policy Plan | Year: 2021–Active
Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan commits €4 billion under Horizon Europe and EU4Health to address the full cancer continuum — from prevention and early detection to treatment and survivorship. It targets tobacco and alcohol reduction, cancer screening programmes, equitable access to medicines, and the development of a comprehensive cancer data infrastructure under the European Cancer Information System. As one of the EU’s flagship public health initiatives, it is directly relevant to the preventive medicine and health promotion work of UEMS Public Health Section member countries.
View ResourceWHO Health 2020 — European Policy Framework for Health and Well-Being
World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe) | Regional Policy Framework | 2013
European NCD Alliance — Policy Advocacy and Stakeholder Network
European NCD Alliance (ENCA) | Policy Advocacy Platform | Active
Cross-Border Health
The free movement of people, health professionals, and services within the EU creates both opportunities and challenges for European public health systems. This section covers the legal and operational frameworks governing cross-border healthcare, patient rights, health professional mobility, and the cross-border dimensions of communicable disease surveillance and response that are central to UEMS Public Health Section member country engagement.
Cross-Border Healthcare → health.ec.europa.euSource: European Union | Type: EU Legal Directive | Year: 2011 (implemented 2013)
Directive 2011/24/EU establishes the legal framework for EU patients to access healthcare in another Member State and claim reimbursement from their home country health system. It also created European Reference Networks (ERNs) for rare and complex diseases, the eHealth Network for digital health interoperability, and the National Contact Points for cross-border healthcare. For UEMS Public Health Section member countries, the Directive creates obligations around quality, safety, and continuity of care for mobile patients that intersect with public health planning.
View ResourceEuropean Health Insurance Card (EHIC) — Coverage, Rights and Member State Implementation
European Commission | Health Insurance Card Scheme | Active
European Reference Networks (ERNs) — Rare Diseases and Complex Conditions
European Commission | Clinical Network | Active
Directive 2013/55/EU — Recognition of Professional Qualifications (Health Professionals)
European Union | EU Directive | 2013
Digital Health
Digital transformation is reshaping European public health systems, creating new opportunities for surveillance, population health monitoring, personalised prevention, and cross-border data sharing. The European Health Data Space, adopted in 2024, represents a watershed moment for health data governance in Europe. This section covers the key frameworks, legal instruments, and platforms shaping digital health in the UEMS member country context.
European Health Data Space → health.ec.europa.euSource: European Commission | Type: EU Regulation and Policy Framework | Year: 2024–Active
The European Health Data Space (EHDS) Regulation, formally adopted in 2024, creates a dedicated legal framework for health data use across the EU, covering both primary use (patient access to their own data) and secondary use (health research, public health surveillance, and policy-making). For public health specialists, EHDS represents a fundamental transformation in the availability of population health data for surveillance, research, and policy. It directly affects the work of all UEMS Public Health Section member countries, requiring national implementation infrastructure including digital health intermediate bodies.
View ResourceWHO Europe — Digital Health Strategy and Action Plan for Europe
World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe) | Regional Digital Health Strategy | Active
eHealth Network — EU Cross-Border Digital Health Services and Standards
European Commission | Intergovernmental Digital Health Network | Active
Data and Surveillance
Robust, comparable, and timely health data is the essential infrastructure for evidence-informed public health policy across Europe. This section covers the principal European and international data platforms, surveillance systems, and health intelligence tools used by UEMS Public Health Section member countries for monitoring population health, tracking disease burden, and informing national and cross-border policy decisions.
Eurostat Health Statistics → ec.europa.euSource: Eurostat, European Commission | Type: Statistical Data Platform | Year: Active
Eurostat is the statistical office of the European Union, providing the authoritative cross-country comparable health data for all EU Member States and candidate countries. Its health statistics database covers mortality causes, morbidity, health determinants, health care resources, health care expenditure, and the European Health Interview Survey. Eurostat health data provides the quantitative baseline for UEMS Public Health Section policy positions and is the primary source for comparative analysis across member country pages in the platform.
View ResourceSource: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) | Type: Surveillance Data Platform | Year: Active
The ECDC Surveillance Atlas provides interactive access to country-level surveillance data on communicable diseases across the EU/EEA, integrating data from TESSy (The European Surveillance System) and other national reporting systems. It enables real-time visualisation of disease trends, geographic distributions, and age-sex breakdowns for over 50 communicable diseases. For national public health authorities in UEMS member countries, the Atlas is a key operational tool for benchmarking national surveillance findings against European baselines.
View ResourceWHO Europe — European Health Information Gateway and HFA Database
World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe) | Data Platform | Active
OECD Health Statistics — International Comparable Data for OECD Europe
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) | Statistical Database | Active
IHME Global Burden of Disease — European Country Profiles
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), University of Washington | Data Platform | Active
Academic Platform
The Georgian Medical Journal provides the academic infrastructure for the UEMS Public Health Section Platform, ensuring editorial independence, open-access dissemination, and international visibility. This section covers the platform’s academic components, key journals in European public health, and resources for contributing experts, country representatives, and institutional partners.
gmj.geGeorgia — Academic Host of the UEMS Public Health Section Platform
GMJ serves as the academic and editorial host of the UEMS Public Health Section Platform, providing open-access infrastructure, editorial independence, and international dissemination. The platform is structured around three components: Country Pages, News, and Resources. It is designed as a living platform — not a static journal issue — continuously updated to reflect developments across member countries and the evolving European public health landscape. Open access under CC BY 4.0. DOI prefix 10.66636.
Note: This platform represents an independent academic collaboration. It does not represent an official position of European Union institutions or affiliated bodies.
Country Directory Visit GMJSource: Oxford University Press / European Public Health Association (EUPHA) | Type: Peer-Reviewed Journal | Year: Active
The European Journal of Public Health is the official journal of EUPHA, publishing original research, reviews, and policy analyses across all domains of public health in the European context. It is the primary peer-reviewed outlet for research directly relevant to UEMS Public Health Section policy positions, covering health systems, communicable disease, NCDs, health promotion, health inequalities, and the social determinants of health in European populations.
View ResourceThe Lancet Regional Health — Europe: Open-Access Regional Research Platform
The Lancet | Peer-Reviewed Journal (Open Access) | Active
BMJ Open — European Public Health Research Archive
BMJ Publishing Group | Open-Access Peer-Reviewed Journal | Active
Health Policy — Elsevier Journal on European Health Systems and Policy
Elsevier | Peer-Reviewed Journal | Active
Eurosurveillance — European Journal for Communicable Disease Surveillance and Control
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) | Peer-Reviewed Journal (Open Access) | Active
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