Prioritising equity through public health investments
During European Public Health Week 2026, the theme for May 5 is “Prioritising equity through public health investments,” under the wider focus of “Investing for sustainable health and wellbeing.” This theme connects closely to JA PreventNCD, which aims to prevent non-communicable diseases and reduce health inequalities across Europe.
As part of JA PreventNCD, the Wellbeing Economy Forum explores how societies can move upstream, from responding to disease and inequality after they occur, towards investing in the conditions that shape health, wellbeing and participation. The Forum is also about redefining success: asking not only whether economies are growing, but whether they enable people, communities and ecosystems to flourish.
Robinson’s Eight-Strand Braid of Care
Several of the Forum sessions spoke especially strongly to this theme. In the session “Care Economy – Care as the Bedrock of Participation in Democratic Societies,” Christine Robinson, Fulbright Specialist and Senior Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy, emphasized that care is infrastructure. The session showed how care is built into, or left out of, the systems that determine whether people can participate fully in society.
Robinson’s Eight-Strand Braid of Care highlights the conditions that make participation possible, including recognition, relationships, culture, institutional design, material security, civic voice, healing and environmental justice. These are also public health conditions. Health is shaped not only by services, but by housing, income, childcare, workplaces, transport, trust, belonging and voice.
Caroline Costongs, Director of EuroHealthNet, chairing a session, speakers Olivier De Schutter, Brynhildur Davíðsdóttir and Bent Madsen
Ending Poverty Through a Wellbeing Economy
In “Ending Poverty Through a Wellbeing Economy?”, chaired by Caroline Costongs, Director of EuroHealthNet, speakers Olivier De Schutter, Brynhildur Davíðsdóttir and Bent Madsen explored how poverty, inequality, housing and environmental sustainability must be addressed together. The session challenged the idea that economic growth alone can solve poverty and called instead for long-term social investment in housing, education, nutrition, healthcare and social protection.
Housing was highlighted as a foundation of wellbeing, not only shelter, but a basis for security, health, education and participation. The discussion also underlined that environmental harm affects those with the least resources most severely, making social justice and ecological sustainability inseparable.
Redefining success around the wellbeing of people and planet.
Together, these sessions reinforce a central message for JA PreventNCD: preventing non-communicable diseases requires more than individual behaviour change. It requires investment in the wider determinants of health and in systems that enable people to live healthy, secure and meaningful lives.
As Europe marks European Public Health Week, JA PreventNCD and the Wellbeing Economy Forum highlight a shared message: to prioritise equity, we must invest in care, housing, participation and environmental sustainability as foundations of public health, and redefine success around the wellbeing of people and planet.