Strengthening pandemic prevention, delivering universal health coverage, and ending tuberculosis: the United Nations’ General Assembly had an unprecedented focus on global public health this year. A paradigm shift in the perception of health is underway, moving away from seeing it as a cost factor and towards a rich investment. However, health systems remain underfunded – to the tune of over $9trn worldwide (2019). The G20 Health & Development Partnership’s report, co-authored by WifOR, points out the key to sustainably financing healthcare: recognizing the holistic value of health investments, not only to patients and those directly affected, but also society.
Presenting the value of health to stakeholders across society lies at the heart of achieving political targets. This issue of WifOR Insights: Health examines the role scientific data plays in promoting health for all. Happy reading!
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Article: global health metrics form the basis for sustainable finance in health
How can we accurately measure the return on health investments? The first step is to define the scope of health targets, in other words, what we want to achieve within the remit of public health. We then need valid metrics tracking the return health investments deliver – for public health, the economy, and society. It is also crucial to recognize how these gains interlink with one another. Finally, these metrics must be transparent and enable comparison with the return on investment (ROI) from other sectors.
The recently published article by WifOR CEO Prof. Dennis Ostwald defines our approach to measuring the ROI on health investments and outlines step-by-step how global health metrics can be implemented to sustainably finance health systems.
Feature interview: realigning healthcare through Social Impact
Silo-thinking has led to health being conceived of almost exclusively in terms of medical outcomes. WifOR’s research broadens this approach by shining a light on the Social Impact of a healthier population as a result of a health intervention. For example, a WifOR study (2021) shows an innovative migraine treatment, erenumab, has the potential to prevent 166 million migraine days in Germany. This corresponds to 120 million paid and 220 million unpaid working hours, translating into a monetized value of €26 billion. In interview (available in German) with Health & Care Management, I presented my team’s mission to make evident the value of health for societal well-being – with the goal of achieving health for all.
Think20 policy brief: curbing the crisis of non-communicable diseases
Causing 41 million deaths worldwide each year, efforts to tackle non-communicable diseases (NCDs) lag behind the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set out by the UN. The prevalence of NCDs undermines well-being, exacerbates inequality, and impedes economic development – most acutely in low-income countries. However, NCDs can be tackled through preventative policies, earlier diagnosis and treatment, as well as sustainable investment in healthcare systems. Our CEO Prof. Dennis Ostwald has co-authored a policy brief for the Think20 (T20), putting forward concrete policies for reducing the spread and impact of NCDs on a global scale. The T20, hosted in India this year, brings together think tanks and high-level experts to promote discussion on pertinent policy issues for G20 countries.
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