Optimising Health In Europe Through Evidence-Based And Personalized Medical Practices: The Use Of Expertise, Standards And Technologies In Health Promotion And Preventive Medicine

Abstract

This is the working title of a workshop planned to take place in April 2012 as a step towards developing a grant proposal to meet the criteria of an appropriate EU framework call in the area of health policy and governance. The core idea is an interest in the use of expertise, standards and technologies on the one hand and on the other hand variations in adherence of patients to prescribed treatment - typically across a number of different lifestyle-related diseases or ailments, in comparison between a number of European countries. The focus would, more specifically, be on two aspects: evidence-basing of relevant treatments and patient adherence to expert recommendations for preventive purposes in the cases of the disease categories selected. At this point the selection of disease categories to focus on in the workshop and the grant proposal is left open; the following are only named as examples: irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), hypertension and cardiovascular diseases, high cholesterol, overweight/obesity, Type 2 diabetes and certain infectious diseases. This is in view of the urgent call to action issued by the WHO Regional Office for Europe in its Summary Report 2005 on European Health which identifies the high risks to health, related to tobacco and alcohol consumption, high blood pressure and cholesterol, overweight, low fruit and vegetable intake, and physical inactivity. The report urges that these health risks need to be dealt with in order to help prevent ischaemic heart disease, unipolar depressive disorders, cerebrovascular disease, alcohol-use disorders, chronic pulmonary disease, lung cancer and road traffic injury. The summary has a special focus on children’s health, because health in childhood determines health throughout life and into the next generation (WHO 2005). The present initiative comes from a group of scholars at the University of Gothenburg who have over the years done research that falls within the realm of science and technology studies (STS). Coming out of an amalgam of studies of scientific controversies, the role of expertise, critical studies of public understanding of science, scientific citizenship and governance issues, and earlier work in the field of science policy studies, several members of the group have now come to focus particularly on Studies of Medicine, Expertise and Controversies (SMEC). For more information about the group, see Appendix II and http://www.flov.gu.se/english/research/.