Dr. Sandra Zimmermann

Head of International Social Policy

Dear readers,

March marks the month in which the European Council establishes the guidelines and priorities for the upcoming year's EU budget. Together with the G20 Health & Development Partnership, WifOR presented the European Parliament with the positive relationship between health investments and resilient socioeconomic growth. However, key to effective health policies is a common set of metrics which accurately measure return on investment (ROI) from health interventions. The importance of establishing common metrics in health and which metrics need to be adopted to define health-related ROI can be found in the collaborative white paper If we can't measure it, we can't fix it.

In Argentina, the Health Economy makes up over 9% of national GDP. Meanwhile, almost every 10^th job in Chile and Columbia is directly supported by the Health Economy. For over a decade now, WifOR's Health Economy Reporting (HER) policy tool has identified a strong interlinkage globally between investments in health systems and societal prosperity coupled with resilient economic growth. Discover the importance of the Health Economy through case studies on selected Latin America countries in the article Health investments create value for public health and the economy.

A milestone in corporate sustainability was reached with the publication of an industry-wide study on the aggregated social, environmental, and economic (SEE) impact of German MedTech companies. The study – the first of its kind worldwide to assess an entire industry – measures the effects generated from the direct operations of MedTech companies in Germany right along the interconnected supply chain. Read more on the factors behind commissioning the study and what the results could mean, for both the MedTech industry and corporate practice globally, in our article SEE Impact: Sustainability starts with the value chain.

Happy reading!

Yours sincerely,