Health actors will not achieve their aims on Sustainable Development Goals unless they are able to change the narrative. Health in All Policies is a key tool in making that change but is sometimes overlooked as too focused on health goals. There is a need to convince other sectors that health contributes to their aims and to achieving goals across sectors and to demonstrate that the co-benefits of working intersectorally is key to making real progress achieving the SDGs.
Health in All Policies (HiAP) tends to focus on wins for the health sector but may not appeal to other sectors.
Recognizing that factors outside the health care services (wider determinants of health) are critical and mainly controlled by the policies of sectors other than health is not enough – other sectors have to be willing to engage with health.
Health for All Policies complements HiAP by drawing attention to win-win solutions for all sectors.
Emphasizing mutual benefits of health and other sectors working together (health co-benefits) can make intersectoral action more appealing and bring other sectors on board.
Health co-benefits can be achieved directly, through improved health and health equity, and indirectly, through the impacts health systems and policies have on other areas of life.
Improving health and reducing health inequalities allows for a better educated, more equal, and more productive population.
Health systems and policies play a major role in the economy and society. The health sector is an employer and purchaser, invests in research and education, and has a broader influence on infrastructure, urban development and climate change.
Identifying and quantifying practical health co-benefits is not easy but SDGs can help structure the way policymakers think about them.
Identification of health co-benefits requires sector-specific knowledge and understanding of context, but the SDGs offer a useful framework to think about the various links across the sectors.
There is a growing body of tools and empirical evidence that can inspire intersectoral action towards co-benefits.
Some of the greatest co-benefits can come from sectoral action; however, both sectoral and intersectoral coordination will often be obstructed by politics.
Good governance can help address the very real challenges of implementing and sustaining co-benefits.
Potential for achieving co-benefits will depend on the political context and active efforts to overcome siloed thinking, inertia, and opposition.
Immediate opportunities can be seized for high-salience, low-conflict issues, while building coalitions to make progress elsewhere.
Simple policy designs where co-benefits are clear and easy to trace can make policies more implementable and sustainable.
Using governance frameworks such as Transparency, Accountability, Participation, Integrity, Capacity (TAPIC) can help diagnose governance problems and identify potential solutions.
Focusing on health co-benefits creates a chance to make real headway towards achieving SDGs and improving wellbeing more broadly.
COVID-19 caused an enormous amount of damage in terms of progress towards the SDGs, but also showed the interconnectedness of many sectors, making a strong case for health co-benefits and Health for All Policies.
© World Health Organization 2023 (acting as the host organization for, and secretariat of, the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies).