AER Breakfast Briefing – Fighting Health Inequalities: Concrete action in the regions, now!

On 15th of May, the EUREGHA Secretariat attended a Breakfast Briefing hosted by the Assembly of European Regions (AER) in Brussels.  Mr. Göran Henriksson, Senior Public Health Advisor at EUREGHA member region Västra Götaland, gave a presentation on health inequalities from the regional perspective, and presented the ‘Action Plan for Health Equity in Region Västra Götaland’.

Mr. Henriksson defined what is meant by the phrase “health inequalities,” and continued to discuss not only why they exist, but also their consequences, particularly how health inequalities threaten sustainable development.  Mr Henriksson also looked at the relationship with economic growth, and how improving health and health inequalities would increase the productivity of the labour force, in turn leading to greater economic growth.

By creating the Action Plan, the region wanted to identify programmes, decisions and initiatives that will reduce health inequalities.  The final Action Plan was presented in December 2012, specifying 44 concrete actions for the region to take in order to improve health equity.  Mr. Henriksson also explained how the Action Plan links to what is happening in Europe through the involvement of Västra Götaland region in the WHO Regions for Health Network (RHN).

 

For more information, please contact the EUREGHA Secretariat.

Full EUREGHA members can access the full report of the Breakfast Briefing on the Members Section of the EUREGHA website.