The European Health Forum Gastein (EHFG) holds expert workshop related to their Health Futures Project: July 10/11, venue Leuven, Belgium
Twenty five experts from various disciplines were gathered by the EHFG team to contribute to a scenarios exercise that would feed in to the upcoming annual Gastein Conference in October.
The experts were given this introduction ‘The Health Futures Project forms part of the European Health Forum Gastein’s (EHFG) celebration of its 20th anniversary. What better way to mark the passing of time than to look ahead to imagine what the next 20 years might have in store for the health of European people? Let us fast-forward to health in 2037! The task before us is to create three different scenarios – plausible stories about the future – that illustrate how the multitude of ‘drivers’ which influence population health could interact to determine the health of people in Europe. These scenarios will be of interest in their own right but we will go further to explore what these future states of public health tell us about the health policy choices that will need to be made over the next twenty years.’
The event, held at the Leuven Institute for Ireland in Europe, was moderated by Prof. Laurie McMahon and Dr. Sarah Harvey of the Realisation Collaborative. It was an engaging and interesting exercise, the minutes of which are yet to be published, but will feed in to a session during the Gastein meeting in October.
The programme is attached
The three scenarios on which we worked were:
Glimpse 1: You are in charge
National health and insurance based health care have been restricted in scope and coverage. There has been a parallel promotion of incentives and exhortations for individuals to take personal responsibility for health, throughout their life. People are starting to value health and wellbeing more than having a good job.
Glimpse 2: No-one left behind
Historical commitments to sustainable development goals largely ignored till now, are taken seriously across the EU. To enable all people to reach their full health potential widespread state sponsored programmes of social, environmental and personal support for health have been introduced. These draw on a huge array of big/smart data collected and collated to predict, monitor and adjust health interventions and their impacts.
Glimpse 3: Technology must deliver
In an effort to secure major population health gains, governments decide to replace their historic reactive e approach to investment in technologies, (‘pushed’ by the market), with proactive and coordinated investment in research, innovation and procurement of technology, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and environmental design.