FORUM 8
Organised by The Health Foundation
Across Europe the increase in non-communicable diseases is a challenge for governments, business and civil society. Discussions about health policy remain focused on funding health care, but improving population health can only be achieved by addressing wider social and economic outcomes. Shifting the narrative of this agenda requires a change in focus from tackling the immediate burden of ill-health to viewing health as an asset that should be invested in.
Until health is recognised as an investment good central to a country's growth and development, governments look set to fail at prioritising the strategies required to maintain and improve health over the life course for example, employment opportunities, housing and early years development. This session will enable delegates to discuss how a comprehensive vision of improved health for all can be placed at the centre of policy aims.
This session will begin by presenting innovative current research investigating the relationship between people's health and their socio-economic outcomes with delegates exploring the policy implications and opportunities such evidence provides.
Speakers from a range of backgrounds from across policy and civil society will provide their views and engage in discussion on: how to overcome barriers to placing people's health as the foundation of a flourishing society; why existing evidence can fail to gain political traction; and the limits practitioners face in putting potential strategies into practice.
Moderation
TIM ELWELL-SUTTON, Assistant Director, Healthy Lives, The Health Foundation
Panel 1: The social and economic value of health
DAVID FINCH, Senior Fellow, The Health Foundation
ALICE SULLIVAN, Professor, Centre for Longitudinal Studies, University College London
FRANCO SASSI, Professor, Imperial College Business School, Imperial College London
Panel 2: Improving health: lessons from policy and practice
SIR MICHAEL MARMOT, Professor, Institute of Health Equity, University College London
VICKY HOBART, Head of Health, Greater London Authority
VESNA-KERSTIN PETRIC, Head of Division for Health Promotion and Prevention of Non-communicable Diseases, Ministry of Health of the Republic of Slovenia
PAUL LINCOLN, CEO, UK Health Forum