Many of the policies and programmes that affect health originate outside the health sector. They include agriculture, education, environment, fiscal policies, gender equality, housing, transport, trade and many others. These policies and programmes have consequences for population health by shaping individual lifestyle factors, social and community contexts, living and working conditions, and the general socioeconomic and cultural context.

• The politics of Agenda setting is important because health is often not considered as a priority by governments. The responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, have shown that intersectorality is possible and can be very effective if health moves up the political agenda;
• Health in all policies (HiAP) is about aligning other policies with health-related objectives. Other sectors should include health considerations in the decision-making and implementation of their policies and programmes. Imposing health objectives on other sectors, however, has not always been welcomed or has turned out to be impractical;
• One way of overcoming reservations with regards to intersectorality is to demonstrate that there are substantial specific co-benefits for these other sectors that can be gained by investing in health-related actions;
• To facilitate intersectorality, governments can build on Intersectoral governance structures. These include cabinet committees and secretariats, parliamentary committees, interdepartmental committees and units, mega-ministries and mergers, joint budgeting, delegated financing, and public, stakeholder and industry engagement.

A recent article published in The Lancet entitled 'From Health in All Policies to Health for All Policies' looks at how sectors can and have worked together to improve health.