Almost 270 participants gathered in Kuopio to discuss how the health community can contribute to mainstream health concerns in all policies.
Quite strikingly, the participants were all from health organisations and nearly no NGOs were invited. Health national institutes, representatives from ministries of health, national agencies of health constituted the majority of the participants with the World Health Organisation and the European Commission. The plenary sessions addressed how health could be mainstreamed and the importance of health as a toll to achieve economic growth.
5 workshops were organised: on health inequalities, alcohol, nutrition, transport and environment and Mental Health.
Anne Hoel represented EPHA at the conference. She took the opportunity to raise the question of Television Without Frontiers as a concrete dossier into which health can be mainstreamed. She also participated in the workshop on Alcohol.
Please contact her for more information at anne@epha.org.
Conclusions of the Council of Ministers for Health, 01 December 2006
Council Conclusions on Health in All Policies
The Council recognised that health and well-being are important values per se and shall not only be considered as vehicles for wealth. While stressing that many health determinants lie beyond the control of individual, they also acknowlege that major health problems are associated with the level of education. They also outlined the importance of health inequalities.
Ministers called for broad society actions to tackle health determinants, in particular unhealthy diets, lack of physical activity, harmful use of alcohol, tobacco and psychological stress.
Therefore, they ask the European Community (ie the Member States, the European Commission and the European Parliament to ensure visibility of health in the development of EU legislation and policies, especially through health impact assessments. More generally, health impact assessments were required from the Member States, the European Commission, as well as the European Parliament.
They also invite the European Commission to take account of equity and set out a work plan in Health in All Policies, notably within the framework of the forthcoming EU Health Strategy.
The European Commission is also called on developing the knowledge base on health determinants, provide information on the links between public health and social and economic considerations. There is also a strong emphasis on the cross-sectoral dimension of public health: the European Commission, as well as the Member States are invited to exploit synergies between policy sectors.
With regard to specific actions that Member States could implement, it should be noted that Ministers of Health outlined that NGOs have a specific added value and shall be associated closely in formulating and implementing national policies.
The European Parliament’s role shall focus on applying parliamentary mechanisms to ensure cross- sectoral cooperation and health impact assessment of legislative and non-legislative proposals.
