Health Equity: 09/12/12

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

[EQ] Governance for health in the 21st century

Governance for health in the 21st century

By Ilona Kickbusch and David Gleicher
WHO Regional Office for Europe - Copenhagen, Denmark – 2012

Available online PDF [128p.] at: http://bit.ly/UKfCnL

“…..Governance for health describes the attempts of governments and other actors to steer communities, whole countries or even groups of countries in the pursuit of health as integral to well-being. This study tracks recent governance innovations to address the priority determinants of health and categorizes them into five strategic approaches to smart governance for health. It relates the emergence of joint action by the health sector and non-health sectors, by public and private actors and by citizens, all of whom have an increasing role to play in achieving seminal changes in 21st-century societies.

This study was commissioned to provide the evidence base for the new European health policy, Health 2020. Calling for a HiAP health-in-all-policies, whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach, Health 2020 uses governance as a “lense” through which to view all technical areas of health….”

Content:

Executive summary

1. 21st-century governance for health and well-being

Background

Focus of the study

Contextual drivers

2. Governance

Three key governance dynamics

The changing nature of policy-making

3. Governance for health and well-being

History of horizontal governance for health in three waves

4. Good governance for health and well-being

What is good governance?

Role of guiding value systems

The relationship between values and evidence

5. Smart governance for health and well-being

Introduction

Five types of smart governance for health and well-being

6. New governance for health

New role for the health sector

Political engagement and leadership

Conclusions and recommendations on the new European policy for health – Health 2020

Glossary

References

Key literature that has informed this study

KMC/2012/SDE
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[EQ] Intersectoral Governance for Health in All Policies - HiAP

Intersectoral Governance for Health in All Policies
Structures, actions and experiences

Edited by

David V. McQueen, Matthias Wismar, Vivian Lin, Catherine M. Jones, Maggie Davies

World Health Organization 2012, on behalf of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies

Available online PDF [221p.] at: http://bit.ly/Qjs4Il

“…..The recent Rio Political Declaration on Social Determinants of Health (WHO, 2011), adopted during the World Conference on Social Determinants of Health in October 2011, continues to highlight the importance of the work of global institutions to address HiAP, social determinants of health and governance. This book in particular echoes and supports themes of the upcoming WHO health policy for Europe, the European Health 2020 policy framework, underscoring the importance of SDoH, HiAP and intersectoral governance (WHO Regional Office for Europe, 2012). These policy developments set the background for the issues to be addressed in this book.

This Introduction places the collective effort in this book into the context of the integration of three major concepts, SDoH, HiAP and governance, which together make this work unique. The integration of these three concepts stemmed from initial editorial discussions on the conceptual aspects of HiAP and emphasized how the SDoH and HiAP ideas help explain the role of governance in health.

Any insight into the relationships between and among the three core concepts would require a considerable narrative to illustrate each concept and their interrelationships. That is why we ultimately chose to see intersectorality as a mechanism or action component operating in the three concepts. Governance is the verb concept among the three and takes us to a concept that manipulates the other two.

However, many of the published explanations of the concept of governance were passive or structural rather than active: that is, they generally described what agencies/government bodies were making decisions on governance rather than how the agencies were making those decisions.

This book is concerned with both structures, such as committees or institutional structures, and agency, in the sense of actors and their actions….”

Content:

Part I Policy Issues and Research Results

Chapter 1 Introduction: Health in All Policies, the social determinants of health and governance

Chapter 2 Synthesizing the evidence: how governance structures can trigger governance actions to support Health in All Policies

Part II Analysing Intersectoral Governance for HiAP

Government and parliament

Chapter 3 Cabinet committees and cabinet secretariats

Chapter 4 The role of parliaments: the case of a parliamentary scrutiny

Bureaucracy and administration

Chapter 5 Interdepartmental units and committees

Chapter 6 Mergers and mega-ministries

Managing funding arrangements

Chapter 7 Joint budgeting: can it facilitate intersectoral action?

Chapter 8 Delegated financing

Engagement beyond government

Chapter 9 Involving the public to facilitate or trigger governance actions contributing to HiAP

Chapter 10 Collaborative governance: the example of health conferences

Chapter 11 Industry engagement

Thank you.

[EQ] Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2011

Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2011

DeNavas-Walt, Carmen, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Jessica C. Smith

September 2012 - U.S. Census Bureau
U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 2012

Press Release: http://1.usa.gov/PivM3P

PDF [89p.] at: http://1.usa.gov/RI5XPS

"…..The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that in 2010, median household income declined, the poverty rate increased and the percentage without health insurance coverage was not statistically different from the previous year.

Real median household income in the United States in 2010 was $49,445, a 2.3 percent decline from the 2009 median.

The nation's official poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 percent, up from 14.3 percent in 2009 ─ the third consecutive annual increase in the poverty rate. There were 46.2 million people in poverty in 2010, up from 43.6 million in 2009 ─ the fourth consecutive annual increase and the largest number in the 52 years for which poverty estimates have been published.

The number of people without health insurance coverage rose from 49.0 million in 2009 to 49.9 million in 2010, while the percentage without coverage −16.3 percent - was not statistically different from the rate in 2009.

This information covers the first full calendar year after the December 2007-June 2009 recession. See section on the historical impact of recessions.

These findings are contained in the report Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2010. The following results for the nation were compiled from information collected in the 2011 Current Population Survey (CPS) Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC)…."

"Materials provided in this electronic list are provided "as is". Unless expressly stated otherwise, the findings
and interpretations included in the Materials are those of the authors and not necessarily of The Pan American
Health Organization PAHO/WHO or its country members".
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[EQ] Call for Case Studies on Healthy Urban Planning

Call for Case Studies on Healthy Urban Planning

The World Health Organization Centre for Health Development in Kobe, Japan (WHO Kobe Centre/WKC)

Project on urban health governance, and a collaborative initiative with UN-HABITAT.

The objective is to document how urban planning can be used as an application of multisectoral action to promote health, particularly in relation to noncommunicable diseases. Healthy urban planning is an area that WHO and UN-HABITAT are engaged as a follow up of a Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two organizations. The joint activities to be developed include:

· Generating evidence for sustaining action on social and environmental determinants of health in urban settings; and

· Advocating for intersectoral policies and multisectoral activities for urban health and development.

WKC is willing to support up to 3 case studies on how healthy urban planning can be implemented through multisectoral action. The funding of each case study will depend on the nature of the research proposed, its duration, and the budget justification. It is envisaged that these case studies will be published and disseminated by WKC.

The complex net of interrelated factors that influence health has been an important consideration since the beginning of public health as a discipline. WHO has explicitly promoted approaches that account for these factors since the 1978 Alma Ata Declaration on Primary Health Care. Today, the need to include many sectors of society in addition to health, in the process of designing and implementing public policies, to improve quality of life - known as multisectoral action for health (MSA) - is widely recognized, and a WHO priority. The emphasis on social determinants of health by WHO and the renewed commitment to primary health care have reinforced the need to identify mechanisms to promote MSA.

Healthy urban planning can have a direct impact on the determinants of health in urban settings, and hence can provide a framework and a model for reducing health inequities in cities. Examples of potentially health promoting interventions of urban planning are strengthening non-motorized transportation, and increasing access to parks and green areas.

This initiative follows from the results of an expert meeting on healthy urban planning held in Kobe in 2011 (http://www.who.int/kobe_centre/publications/urban_planning2011/en/index.html).

The outcomes of this research are expected to contribute to the background materials for the
8^th Global Conference on Health Promotion to be held in Helsinki in 2013
http://www.stm.fi/c/document_library/get_file?folderId=4598513&name=DLFE-16509.pdf as examples of MSA.
This project is also linked to the implementation of the recommendations included in the Political Declaration of the United Nations High-Level Meeting on Noncommunicable Disease Prevention and Control held in 2011 (http://www.who.int/nmh/events/un_ncd_summit2011/en/).

Objectives

· To identify multisectoral policies, strategies and/or interventions of urban planning used to impact on health in middle sized cities.

· To identify mechanisms used for multisectoral action by urban planning interventions.

· To derive lessons for national and sub-national policymakers from different sectors on effective multisectoral urban planning approaches to prevent noncommunicable diseases and to promote health in cities.

Scope and methodology

Each case study is expected to document one urban centre in Asia which has an approximate population ranging between 200,000-300,000 people, and which in the last 10 years has implemented an urban planning intervention with multisectoral involvement that has impacted on health. The studies will be undertaken using a case study method (e.g., Yin 1994).

The case study should concentrate on:

· describing the main health challenges that exist within the given selected city, and their relation to its urban context;

· examining the key elements of urban planning that have been used to guide the process;

· addressing the approach used for multisectoral action for health in implementing the urban planning initiative;

· assessing the degree to which the social and environmental determinants of health were incorporated; and

· evaluating the resulting health outcomes from available evidence.

The initiatives should show how different sectoral interests were aligned and how operations were integrated with the regular functioning of the implementing institutions. The areas of interventions should cover the intersection of the health sector and one or more of the following sectors: environment, transportation, agriculture, commerce, and industry. Other sectors will also be considered.

Expressions of interest

Expressions of interest can be addressed via email to Suvi Huikuri (huikuris@wkc.who.int).
Expressions of interests are due on 30 September 2012, should be no longer than 1500 words, and should include the following information:

· The policy or intervention. An overview of the healthy urban planning policy or intervention, stating the sectors involved.

· The strategy to document the case and the impact of the policy. The methodological approach, sources of information, and data to be used in the research should be described.

· General overview of expected lessons learnt.

· Brief description of the research institution and/or individual researcher(s). Expertise in public health, urban planning or related fields, and excellent English writing skills are mandatory. Prior experience with the United Nations (UN) will be considered as an advantage.

Thank you.