*1.4. Purpose of this Article*

Currently, a large number of national and subnational governments are conducting retrospective evaluations of COVID-19 health policy decisions and actions to reflect on their strengths and weaknesses and, thus, to find opportunities to reinforce public institutions for future crises [13]. Thereby, the main aim of this article was to describe the design of the "Understanding COVID" strategy of the Ministry of Health of the Principality of Asturias (Spain), which helped to offer and to adapt information on protection measures against COVID-19 for the entire population of Asturias, including how specific criteria were incorporated for the design of interventions in rural areas with the active participation of their inhabitants. Secondarily, the article also shows the preliminary evaluation of the implementation process of the strategy under real conditions. Ultimately, this work allows us to understand the Spanish public health sector's capacities to deal with crises and seeks to generate learning toward a more effective and equitable response in the future.
