With an unrestricted grant from Viatris
The spoken word is a powerful cultural lever for increasing trust and awareness around public health issues. From this awareness emerges ABCì: the Treccani Accademia project, the business school of the Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani.
The initiative, created with Viatris’ unrestricted support (Nasdaq: VTRS), a global health company, dedicates its first edition to prevention during the influenza season, making authoritative, accessible, and culturally relevant tools available to both citizens and health professionals.
Knowledge Begins with the Basics
The name ABCì evokes the alphabet: the first tool through which children learn about the world, while also playing on the rhyme of the sneeze, one of the most recognizable symptoms of influenza. A simple, strong idea: prevention, like any form of knowledge, starts with the basics.
The project unfolds through three main actions:
• The ABCì Dictionary – The words of prevention, a booklet available in print and digital formats that gathers the key terms of influenza prevention taken from Treccani’s vocabulary, defined by a sociolinguist and accompanied by the scientific-popular contribution of a medical writer;
• An operational toolkit for physicians and pharmacists, designed to support daily dialogue with citizens about influenza prevention and to provide concrete tools for addressing the most common questions and objections;
• A public outreach event, hosted at the Sala Igea of the Treccani Institute of the Italian Encyclopedia, focusing on an interdisciplinary dialogue among health, language, and information.
A Public Health Topic Still Underestimated
Every year, influenza affects millions of people, and in Italy it is estimated that around 8,000 deaths are attributable directly or indirectly to influenza and its complications.
Vaccination coverage remains insufficient: in the 2024-2025 season, vaccination reached just over half of those over 65 (52.5%), far below the minimum target of 75% set by the National Vaccination Prevention Plan and by the World Health Organization.
A gap that depends not only on vaccine access, but also on cultural and communication factors: fragmented information, distorted risk perceptions, misinformation, and distrust in information sources. It is precisely on this terrain that ABCì aims to intervene, working on the quality and clarity of the words used to tell the story of prevention.
The Event
On October 14, the Sala Igea of the Treccani Institute in Rome hosted the ABCì public event – Le parole della prevenzione. It wasn’t a scientific conference, but a space for listening and dialogue where some of the most authoritative voices from the institutional, scientific, cultural, and journalistic worlds reflected on the role of words in building trust and awareness around influenza prevention.
Among the speakers: Massimo Andreoni (infectious disease specialist, member of the Superior Health Council), Francesco Saverio Mennini (Head of the Department of Programming, Medical Devices, Drugs, and Policies for the NHS, Ministry of Health); Giovanni Migliore (Director General, Ministry of Health Communications); Massimo Di Maio (President of the Italian Association of Medical Oncology), Carlo Caltagirone (Scientific Director, Santa Lucia IRCCS), Antonella Celano (President, National Association of People with Rheumatic and Rare Diseases), Antonio D’Avino (National President, Italian Federation of Pediatricians), Andrea Mandelli, via video link (President, Federation of the Order of Italian Pharmacists), Alfredo Procaccini (Deputy President, Federfarma), Maurizio Coggiola (President, Italian Society of Occupational Medicine), Maurizio Casasco (President, Italian Federation of Sports Medicine), along with journalists and communicators Luciano Onder and Nicolò Porcelluzzi and linguist Beatrice Cristalli.
Opening remarks were delivered by Massimo Bray, General Director of the Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, and by Rosella Calabrese, Delegate Councillor of Treccani Accademia. The event moderator was Massimo Maria Amorosini, General Director of Fast Forward.
«Guided by our mission to enable people around the world to live a healthier life at every stage, we firmly believe it is essential to collaborate with all health system actors. It is only by working together with institutions, patient associations, scientific societies, and health professionals that we can generate real public health impact. We are committed both to raising citizen awareness about the importance of prevention and to helping improve access to influenza vaccination, because supporting vaccination for all groups for whom it is recommended and increasing overall population awareness are fundamental elements to protect everyone» declares Fabio Torriglia, Viatris Italy Country Manager.
Dissemination Mission
ABCì sits within Treccani Accademia’s institutional mission: to put the cultural heritage, linguistic competence, and editorial authority of the Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana at the service of scientific and cultural dissemination.
«With ABCì we bring public dissemination the same mission that has long guided our educational offerings dedicated to health and scientific communication: to train professionals capable of using clear language. Correct communication is not a byproduct of prevention; it is prevention itself. Speaking about health with clear words means helping citizens make informed and responsible choices» explains Rosella Calabrese, Delegate Councillor, Treccani Accademia.
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