International experts in public health met on 14 October 2010, in Copehagen, to map out the broad goals and targets of the new European health policy, Health 2020.
Member States and partners gave WHO-Europe a strong, clear mandate to develop the new European health policy, at the sixtieth session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe, held in Moscow, 14-16 September 2010. The Health 2020 policy is being developed to accelerate progress towards achieving the European Region’s health potential by 2020 by addressing key public health and health policy challenges. The policy proposals will be presented for approval to the 53 Member States in the European Region at the sixty-second session of the Regional Committee in 2012.
The WHO Regional Office for Europe has also recently launcheda research project mapping health inequities in the 53 countries in the WHO European Region.The project, called the ‘European review of the social determinants of health and the health divide’, will aim to highlight the relevance of the findings of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health (published in 2008) and provide new evidence in the European context, which can be translated into policy proposals. It will provide scientific evidence and a framework for future action on the social determinants of health.
The review will supplement research generated by the Regional Office’s WHO European Office for Investment for Health and Development, and will support the Regional Office’s work on Health 2020.The first meeting of senior advisers and globally acclaimed scientists assisting in the project took place in Madrid on 18-19 October 2010.
