Plenary sessions Berlin 2022

The main theme of the 15^th EPH Conference Berlin 2022 is:

Strengthening health systems: improving population health and being prepared for the unexpected

This session is the official opening session of the conference and provides an introduction to the main theme.

Moderators

• Reinhard Busse, Chair of the 15th EPH Conference 2022
• Verena Vogt, Chair of the EPH Conference International Scientific Committee

Speakers

• Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe
• Karl Lauterbach, Minister of Health, Germany
• Chikwe Ihekweazu, Director WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence

Background

Governments have repeatedly affirmed their commitment to meeting the goals of universal health coverage (UHC) – to ensure that everyone can use the quality health services they need without experiencing financial hardship. In spite of strong political commitment to UHC, research from the WHO Regional Office for Europe shows that:

• gaps in health coverage lead to unmet need for health care and financial hardship among people using health services
• these negative outcomes are heavily concentrated among people in poverty and those with multiple chronic conditions
• countries can reduce unmet need and financial hardship by re-designing coverage policy (the way in which health coverage is designed and implemented)

This session aims to raise awareness about the most prevalent gaps in coverage in European health systems, the policies that cause them and what countries can do to address them. It will draw on findings from an updated version of the WHO study ‘Can people afford to pay for health care? New evidence on financial protection in Europe’, which covers over 35 countries in Europe, including all EU member states and many middle-income countries

Policy messages

The session will highlight common gaps in coverage that systematically harm people with low incomes:

• the basis for population entitlement to publicly financed health services: exclusion of undocumented migrants; linking entitlement to employment or payment of contributions
• the scope and quality of publicly financed health services: poor coverage of medicines and dental care for adults; unreasonable waiting times leading to use of private services or non-covered medicines and unmet need user charges (co-payments): the absence of exemptions for people with low incomes; the absence of annual caps on all user charges; heavy reliance on percentage co-payments

The session will focus on how to make progress by:

• drawing attention to key principles for re-designing coverage policy, especially for people who are ‘left behind’ (adopting progressive universalism)
• showing how countries in Europe have done this, using examples of good practice

Format

Panel debate

• addressing the gap between research evidence and policy response;
• tackling historic reliance on user charges (co-payments), especially for medicines (the main driver of financial hardship in Europe);
• moving beyond political declarations.

Moderator

• Natasha Azzopardi Muscat, Director of the Division of Country Health Policies and Systems, WHO Reginal Office for Europe

Keynote speaker

• Charles Normand, Professor of Health Policy and Management, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland

Panellists

• Sarah Thomson, Senior Health Financing Specialist, WHO Barcelona Office for Health Systems Financing
• Kaisa Immonen, Director of Policy, European Patients’ Forum (EPF)
• Reinhard Busse, Head of the Department Health Care Management, Technische Universität Berlin, Germany; Co-Director European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies
• Tamás Evetovits, Head of Office, WHO Barcelona Office for Health Systems Financing

Background

The creation of a European Health Data Space (EHDS) is one of the key components of a strong European Health Union. The objectives of the EHDS are: i) Empower individuals through better digital access to their personal health data; support free movement by ensuring that health data follow people; ii) Unleash the data economy by fostering a genuine single market for digital health services and products; and iii) Set up strict rules for the use of individual’s non-identifiable health data for research, innovation, policy-making and regulatory activities. As such, the EHDS aims to improve and support healthcare delivery within Europe by allowing public health data to be accessible throughout Europe. The EHDS also aims to promote better access and exchange of different types of health data for research and policy purposes. The aim is to have the EHDS up and running in 2025.

The EHDS is expected to bring great benefit, but it also brings challenges related to technology, governance and privacy. The exchange of data at European level means that health data from different sources need to be able to talk to each other. Making the data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Re-usable is key to the success of the EHDS. Moreover, the diversity of Europe’s health information systems need to be taken in account. The EHDS will also have to be transparent to ensure privacy of personal information included in the EHDS.

Moderators

• • Iveta Nagyova, President European Public Health Association (EUPHA)
  • Isabel de la Mata, Principal Adviser for Health and Crisis Management, DG SANTE, European Commission

Speakers

• • Fulvia Raffaelli, Head of the Digital Health unit, DG SANTE, European Commission
  • Petronille Bogaert, President EUPHA Public health monitoring and reporting section; Head EU health information systems, Sciensano, Belgium
  • Irene Schlünder, Expert EU data protection and database governance, TMF e.V., Germany
  • Axelle Menu-Branthomme, Medical Expert, Health Data Hub, France
  • Kaisa Immonen, Director of Policy at the European Patients’ Forum (EPF)

Background

Background

Over the past decades, in Europe, the nature of our disease burden has shifted from more communicable and acute to chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer and mental ill health. These diseases usually manifest themselves later in life, but they are not necessarily related to biological ageing. They mostly result from an accumulation of unhealthy living patterns since childhood and across the life course. Consumption of processed foods high in fat, salt, and sugar, smoking, excessive alcohol use, too little physical activity and too much stress all contribute to the growing and worsening burden of chronic diseases. These behaviours in turn are shaped by the social, environmental, cultural and economic conditions in which we live, grow, work and age.

Once they have developed, chronic diseases can be difficult, or even impossible to cure. Our health services, with a traditional curative approach, are not equipped for this chronic epidemic. There is an urgent need to shift our health services away from the predominant focus on cure and towards prevention, and for policy makers to invest in ensuring healthy living environments and societies. Health promotion and enabling people and population groups to increase control over their health, particularly those facing disadvantage, has the potential to transform our health services, and is critical to ensuring their resilience and sustainability.

Despite a growing awareness of the need for change, reorienting structures and systems in practice is challenging, as people can be resistant to change. Siloed approaches within the health sector, but also between social, health, and education sectors continue to prevail, and it is not always easy to find the right levers for change and to build bridges across administrations. This is compounded by a lack of infrastructure, organizational and workforce capacity for health promotion, and sustainable financing mechanisms. Much innovative work is however taking place, which we can learn from and scale up.

This plenary session will provide examples of different ways in which health-promoting approaches can reorient health services, strengthen health-promoting and community oriented primary care and prevent chronic diseases. It will highlight what we can learn from behavioural and cultural insights and social prescribing, as well as integrated community initiatives to further support people, across the social gradient, to lead and to maintain healthy lives. It will discuss target setting for further advocacy among policy makers.

Moderator

• • Martin Dietrich, Acting Director, Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA), Germany

Speakers

• Martin Dietrich, Acting Director, Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA), Germany
• • Rüdiger Krech, Director for Health Promotion, World Health Organization (by video)
  • Susan Michie, Director of the Centre for Behaviour Change, University College London, United Kingdom
  • Jan de Maeseneer, Chair European Commission Expert Panel on Effective Ways of Investing in Health; Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Ghent University, Belgium
  • Jet Bussemaker, Chair Council of Public Health & Society, Netherlands; Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands
  • Cristiano Figueiredo, USF da Baixa, Central Lisbon Health Centre Cluster; National School of Public Health, NOVA University Lisbon, Portugal.

Background

The plenary session will align with the main conference theme ‘Strengthening health systems: improving population health and being prepared for the unexpected’ and provide a balanced perspective on public health and healthcare interprofessional linkages for training of the two workforces as being a critical condition for a well-functioning, responsive and robust health system.

Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat, WHO Regional Office for Europe, will set the scene by elaborating on WHO’s European Programme of Work (EPW) ‘United Action for Better Health in Europe’ reflecting on the coherence of policies, structures and resources for quality of health care and implications for policy dialogue, policy formulation and technical assistance at the regional, sub-regional and country levels. She will also speak to the WHO Europe Regional HRH Report presented in September 2022 and the joint WHO – ASPHER Roadmap to Professionalisation launched in February 2022 offering pragmatic recommendations for action to professionalise the public health workforce as a response to growing public health needs.

EHMA Executive Director George Valiotis will follow with a presentation on the key EU agenda on skills for health, with the EHMA led BeWell (2022-2025) project: Investing in the upskilling and reskilling of the European health workforce. The multi-partner consortium aims to build a movement of healthcare stakeholders which support and contribute to the development, implementation, and upscaling of a strategy on the upskilling and reskilling of the European health workforce addressing the skills needed to support the digital and green transition within the health ecosystem enabling all health professionals to be better prepared to face future challenges and adapt to ever-evolving societal contexts.

Moderator

• • John Middleton, President ASPHER
  • Tara Chen, Climate-Health Fellow, ASPHER

Keynote speakers

• Natasha Azzopardi Muscat, Director of the Division of Country Health Policies and Systems, WHO Reginal Office for Europe
• George Valiotis, Executive Director EHMA

Speakers/Panellists

• • Fatai Ogunlayi, Public Health Specialty Registrar UK, Health Security Agency, United Kingdom
  • Laurent Chambaud, Andrija Stampar Medallist 2022, France 
  • Anett Ruszanov, Director of Policy and Programmes, EHMA

Moderators

• Reinhard Busse, Chair of the 15th EPH Conference 2022
• Verena Vogt, Chair of the EPH Conference International Scientific Committee

Speakers

• Christian Drosten, Director, Institute of Virology, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany
• Dineke Zeegers Paget, Strategic adviser European Public Health Association (EUPHA)
• Anthony Staines, Chair of the 16th EPH Conference 2023

Awards ceremony

Best Poster Prize, Best Abstract Prize, Ferenc Bojan Award

Welcome

to next year’s 16th European Public Health Conference, Dublin, Ireland