WS 05 - Recoupling Societal Wealth and Individual Health

The COVID-19 pandemic was a stark reminder that health care systems in many countries lack the resources and resilience to cope with unexpected shocks. Beyond the current crisis, there is also stark differences between (wealthy) countries´ capability to provide their citizens with the best health care possible. One primary reason is the strong focus in recent years and decades on making national health care more efficient, instead of focusing on resilience and human wellbeing – (individual) health has thus been decoupled from (societal) wealth in many countries.

Focusing on the G20 as the largest economies and some of the world´s wealthiest societies; this panel takes stock of the performance of national health systems in the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond and asks for ways to recouple health and wealth as part of a more human-centered development model.