Health 21 : the health for all policy framework for the WHO European Region

This work sets out a policy framework centred around 21 precise targets for improving the health of Europeans in the 21st century. It adopts an optimistic approach, arguing that Europe is poised - for the first time in its history - to make human development its main social priority in the coming century. The book has eight chapters. The first introduces the aims, values, and main strategies that guide this renewed policy of health for all. Against this background, groups of related targets and the strategies for reaching them are explained in separate chapters, which craw on country experiences to illustrate the need for targets and the feasibility of reaching them. Chapter Two, on equity in health, considers what needs to be done to improve the health status of the poor, unemployed, women, ethnic minorities, migrants and refugees, and the disabled. Two chapters focus on health outcomes. The first concentrates on stages in the life course which offer considerable opportunity for promoting and maintaining health: birth and early childhood, adolescence, and old age. The second chapter describes targets for improving mental health, controlling communicable and noncommunicable diseases, and reducing injury from violence and accidents. Strategies for reaching goals are discussed in chapters concerned with the use of multisectioral action to address the broad determinants of health, reforms needed within the health sector, and policy options for mobilizing political, professional and public support for health for all. The book concludes with a call for action and inspired public health leadership.