In April 2022 Rabab Chrifou started her secondment at Sciensano, which is a Belgian health institute that identifies new developments and takes initiatives to improve public health including the impact of animal health on public health. The subject of her secondment was to identify barriers and facilitators for health communication between local government and citizens. To this aim she organised two focus groups with government officials and local key figures and a dialogue café to understand the barriers from the perspectives of citizens and local government, and to seek ways to improve health communication. The results will be presented and shared with all stakeholders, and a final dissemination event will be held later in 2023.