EuroHealthNet responds to EU Consultation on the EU4Health Work Programme for 2024
EuroHealthNet has sent input to the European Commission’s targeted consultation on the EU4Health Work Programme for 2024. in its response, it urged to prioritise actions on health promotion and disease prevention, addressing underlying socioeconomic and environmental determinants of health and inequalities, and laying fundaments for a transition toward a true European Health Union and shift to the economy of wellbeing.
Systematically over the years – and despite the lessons learned from the pandemic, the predominant approach to health has been of biomedical nature, in terms of structure, organisation and supply of treatment and disease management. Prevention and health promotion via primary, integrated and community-based care have not been yet sufficiently addressed. Improved NCD prevention could reduce the burden by as much as 70%, yet has not been put much to practice and invested in. Crisis preparedness and response plans have still not fully considered the relationship between the underlying systemic determinants of health and inequalities, behavioural and cultural insights, and societal resilience to poly-crises, this including the ongoing climate emergency.
EuroHealthNet’s contribution urges a substantial shift toward addressing these overlooked approaches and causes of ill-health, suggesting areas where urgent actions must be prioritised in the European Commission’s programme of work on health in 2024.
The results of the consultation will also feed into the EU4Health stakeholders’ conference on 9 June 2023.
For more information, please contact Dorota Sienkiewicz.
