Portugal - Survey respondents and Workshop participants: Caldas de Almeida, Teresa - National Institute of Health Doutor Ricardo Jorge, Head of Health Promotion Unit; Costa, Alexandra - National Institute of Health Doutor Ricardo Jorge, Senior Technical ExpertExecutive summary: recommendations for action: The COVID-19 pandemic caught the world unprepared and has changed the shape of public health
– and of our lives – for the foreseeable future. A group of senior public health officials from
national and regional public health agencies across Europe came together to discuss current
developments, the interrelated complexities and implications for their work in the near and longterm future. This report reflects their insights into some of the most pressing societal challenges
and trends for public health in the years ahead, adopting a broad definition of health which
encompasses social and environmental factors.
Challenges considered include the rise in social and health inequalities, the increasing pressure on
health systems, and negative impacts on population mental health. They reflect both direct as well
as indirect impacts of the crisis on health, such as for instance unemployment and its pathways to
ill-health. Climate change and (further) environmental degradation were highlighted as key longterm challenges. The exercise also included setting out opportunities, such as the fact that public
health has been put in the spotlight and is at the centre of political agendas and public mindsets.
The group concluded that “building back better” from the pandemic could provide an opportunity
to strengthen health promotion and disease prevention, to bring more sectors together around
the topic of health, including mental health and to enable citizens to adopt healthier, more
sustainable behaviours. The importance of community action and social cohesion during the
pandemic also provides opportunities to boost local level initiatives and networks.
Over the next months and years, actions need to be taken to tackle the challenges at the root
level, cushion the impacts of crisis and mitigation measures and encourage positive developments.
Public health actors and agencies continue to have a pivotal role to ensuring a resilient, inclusive
and sustainable recovery from the pandemic.
This foresight exercise led to a draft set of recommendations for how different actors can help
bring this about. The recommendations were discussed and validated in a EuroHealthNet
partnership workshop in November 2020 and reflect this exchangeAim: EuroHealthNet and its member organisations have important roles to play in the future of public
health in Europe, as well as on the ground in their home countries. They monitor, analyse and act
to protect and improve the health of the population. This foresight exercise aimed to understand
and discuss some of the trends and challenges but also the potential opportunities that have arisen
from the pandemic, to inform members’ strategies and their work. It also sought to provide input
for EuroHealthNet’s strategy for the coming years and explore how the partnership can positively
contribute to “building back better”.
The exercise, and this report, also aims to be useful to the broader stakeholder community,
working on or around public health at local, national and EU level.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
