Vaccination News Home Page

http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7351/1416/h

Email this article to a friend Respond to this article Download to Citation Manager Search Medline for articles by: Richards, T. Alert me when: New articles cite this article

Collections under which this article appears: Other Public Health International health Health Economics

BMJ 2002;324:1416 ( 15 June )
 

News extra

Public health doctors must press for health targets

Tessa Richards BMJ

Setting health targets (rather than simply providing health services) may be a good way to persuade governments to take health seriously, suggested delegates at a meeting in London last week.

But targets must be set at regional and district level rather than national or European level, insisted Dr Hans Stein, head of the European health policy unit at the German health ministry.

The meeting, organised by BMJ Books and supported by an educational grant from Merck Sharp & Dohme, heard delegates say that proposals for targets should be presented in a way that emphasised the link between health and wealth. Politicians were much more likely to agree to set health targets if they, and the media, could be persuaded that good health was good economics.

The problem with health targets was that there tended to be a long time lag between implementing policy and observing change. Governments preferred to adopt policies that produced measurable returns in three to five years, yet the recent fall in lung cancer rates in Russia, for example, could be attributed to Stalin’s policy—adopted during 1943-53—of reducing cigarette consumption.

Health targeting needed to be seen as part of a mid to long term strategy to improve health, and targets had to be drawn up with the full collaboration of patients' and consumers' organisations, delegates agreed.

"The World Health Organization's Healthy Cities initiatives suggest that communities have tremendous capacity to cooperate in public health initiatives, " said Dr Ilona Kickbusch, head of the division of global health at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

What was needed now, she suggested, was for public health physicians to show more leadership and be more imaginative and proactive in the way they interacted with local communities. They must also engage more effectively with politicians and the media and be prepared to take on the vested interests of the tobacco, food, alcohol, and soft drinks industries.

Health Targets in Europe: Polity, Progress and Promise, edited by Marshall Marinker, is obtainable from BMJ Books at www.bmjbooks.com
 
 
 
 

Email this article to a friend Respond to this article Download to Citation Manager Search Medline for articles by: Richards, T. Alert me when: New articles cite this article

Collections under which this article appears: Other Public Health International health Health Economics

Vaccination News Home Page

ALL INFORMATION, DATA, AND MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REFLECTING THE KNOWLEDGE OR OPINIONS OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED OR INTENDED AS PROVIDING MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE.  THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO VACCINATE IS AN IMPORTANT AND COMPLEX ISSUE AND SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.