Eurohealth special issue explores governance issues during the pandemic to help learn lessons for building resilient health systems
“COVID-19 and the opportunity to strengthen health system governance”, the new Eurohealth issue produced by the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies in collaboration with the WHO Regional Office for Europe examines governance during the pandemic and sets out clear lessons for how to enhance public health and health system resilience.
“Governance is about making and implementing collective decisions,” the Eurohealth editorial reads. “It is therefore vitally important to health policy and implementation and is a pivotal, yet often underestimated, enabler for leading
a health system in times of emergencies, preventing them from becoming a crisis.”
The editors highlight that we should not wait to prepare for the next emergency, but rather learn from the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic to strengthen the governance of our health systems now, to ensure better resilience and performance in the future.
The editorial is signed by Dr Hans Kluge, Dr Natasha Azzopardi Muscat and Dr Dorit Nitzan from WHO Europe as well as Dr Josep Figueras and Dr Matthias Wismar from the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies.
From public health leadership to the involvement of civil society
The first section of this Eurohealth issue begins by looking at public health leadership during the pandemic. Authors argue that there is a critical need for public health to be reinforced and enabled to ensure effective public health responses.
They also look at how previous emergencies have motivated countries to better prepare for future ones, presenting important learnings from the pandemic with a focus on the maturity of health systems and strengthening emergency preparedness.
The second section looks at key dimensions of governance during COVID-19, including pandemic strategies and the need to address the social and economic determinants of health, sovereignty and global collaboration, creating health workforce
surge capacity, as well as working with the private sector and making the case for better engagement between governments and civil society.
Articles draw on the expertise of the WHO Regional Office for Europe’s Division of Country Health Policies and Systems, the Health Emergencies team, the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, and other experts.
Eurohealth is a journal that provides a forum for researchers, experts and policy-makers to express their views on health policy issues and so contribute to a constructive debate in Europe and beyond. This special issue is planned for
dissemination at the 71st session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe on 13-15 September 2021.
Image: WHO experts and local specialists at the national laboratory in the Republic of Moldova (Credit: WHO)