4th Basel Sustainability Forum: Health

The UN Sustainable Development Goal 3 (UN SDG 3) of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is about ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages. Its targets include a reduction of: premature deaths of mothers and newborns, infectious and communicable diseases, premature mortality from non-communicable diseases, alcohol and substance abuse, road traffic accidents, and deaths from chemicals and pollution. Furthermore, UN SDG 3 aims to strengthen or promote mental health and well-being, sexual and reproductive health, access to health-care services and affordable medicines and vaccines, and the capacity for the management of national and global health risks (UN SDGs 2015). UN SDG 3 is only one of 17, each of which are similarly ambitious.

The UN SDGs are interdependent. Some goals serve as preconditions for healthy lives, and others are consequences thereof. Precursors are, for example, UN SDG 2 (End hunger, achieve food security, improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture), UN SDG 5 (Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls), UN SDG 6 (Ensure access to water and sanitation for all), UN SDG 7 (Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all), and UN SDG 13 (Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts). Goals affected by health are, for example, UN SDG 8 (Promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, employment and decent work for all). Some goals are both preconditions and consequences of health, such as UN SDG 1 (End poverty in all its forms everywhere). Poverty reduction is associated with better health and nutrition, which in turn has an effect on poverty reduction.

According to the OECD, the per capita health expenditure in 2015 (PPP) was US$9451 for the US, US$6935 for Switzerland, US$731 for China, and US$267 for India. Despite considerable variations in expenditures, all countries are struggling to maintain health care coverage in the face of rising costs, evolution of health care demands by the population, and changing demographics.

Health care is a central pillar of economic development, social welfare, and environmental management, and it is equally important to the most and least developed economies. Accordingly, health and sustainability are interdependent in at least two ways: the first relates to the reciprocal relationship between health and sustainability, the second to the sustainability of health and health care.

The Basel Sustainability Forum 2019 will focus on local and global issues associated with sustainability and health. It will explore different positions from health research, health policy, and the health business sector, and how these positions contribute or are obstacles to the sustainability of health and health care as a pillar of societal sustainability.

Hans-Florian Zeilhofer and Max Bergman
Chairs of the 4th Basel Sustainability Forum

When: 3 June 2019, 08:30-17:00 Where: Kollegienhaus, Room 102, Petersplatz 1, University of Basel

The event is free but participants need to register here.

Places are limited and we are unable to accommodate unregistered guests, once we reach the limit imposed by the conference venue.

The Basel Sustainability Forum is a Swiss local offshot of the World Sustainability Forum.

The conference language is English.

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