The Role of Patients Amidst Global Polycrises

This session explores how health systems, patient outcomes and societal resilience in the face of today’s polycrises can all benefit when patients and people with lived experience are enabled to partner equally in healthcare design, delivery and monitoring at all levels. Session participants will hear about the evidence-based value of the 2024 World Health Assembly (WHA) resolution on social participation in universal health coverage, health and well-being, and learn from real-world examples how it has worked positively and concretely across diseases and geographies.

Session panelists will also look to the future, drawing examples from other areas beyond health, including climate change, to explore how engaging with strong communities, including patients and people with lived experience, can create more abundance for both planet and people. The discussion will challenge participants to imagine what becomes possible when mindsets shift from considering both health and patients as costs and problems to be fixed, to seeing them as co-drivers of a 'one planet one health' future. Participants will hopefully leave the session feeling mobilized and equipped with concrete ideas on how to transition towards the people-centered, partnership-based systems we need.