Citation, summary, extracts and comment from me below.
CITATION: The Lancet Commission on improving population health post-COVID-19
Rutter H et al. The Lancet, Volume 407, Issue 10525, 267 - 308
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)02061-6/fulltext?dgcid=raven_jbs_etoc_feature_lancetcovid26
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
An increasing number of national and international commitments have failed to reduce three intimately interconnected major global threats to population health: non-communicable diseases, outbreaks of infectious diseases, and environmental degradation... This Commission provides a set of recommendations that, if implemented, could have a major impact on increasing both the scale and speed of action necessary to address some of the greatest threats to population health (panel 1).
Priority recommendations
• Replace harmful policies and interventions with actions to improve population health and the natural environment
• Enhance the effectiveness of governments, commercial actors, and civil society to improve population health
• Develop capability and capacity in systems level responses to the three threats, with demonstrable progress by 2030
EXTRACTS
1. The world faces multiple difficult and, in many cases, growing challenges: a worsening climate, struggling economies, populist politics, rampant misinformation and disinformation in the media, commercial actors influencing policy processes, and profound policy inertia. However, concerted engagement and action by civil society has the potential to reverse these harmful trends to create a greener and healthier world.
2. Citizens and civil society groups should voice their support for effective interventions to improve population health and their disapproval of ineffective interventions, with demonstrable progress by 2030. These groups should take all opportunities offered by policy makers to engage in all stages of the policy-making process, including in the prioritisation of policies and the allocation of public resources. Such actions require governments and other bodies to communicate the evidence for the effectiveness of policies at achieving improvements to population health; protect against misinformation and disinformation; empower and fund civil society organisations to participate meaningfully in policy development; and to ensure leaders in public office act in trustworthy ways.
COMMENT (NPW):
The paper appears to put the onus on civil society. However, our ongoing HIFA Project on SUPPORT-SYSTEMS has clearly demonstrated that civil society organisations face intrinsic and extrinsic challenges that greatly limit collective capacity to bring evidence into policy and practice. https://www.hifa.org/projects/support-systems-how-can-decision-making-pr...
The paper focuses on misinformation. Our discussions on HIFA indicate we need to focus more on improving the availability and use of reliable healthcare information, and people's ability to differentiate between reliable and unreliable information. The way forward is to better understand and strengthen the global evidence ecosystem. The HIFA global consultation (2024) calls for WHO to take the lead by explicitly championing universal access and convening stakeholders to develop a global strategy. https://www.hifa.org/about-hifa https://www.hifa.org/projects/hifa-official-relations-who
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org