Davos Agenda: What you need to know about the future of global health

The COVID-19 pandemic is a health crisis unlike any we’ve seen in our lifetimes – and getting control of the virus and ensuring citizens around the world are vaccinated are top public health priorities.

However, COVID-19 is far from the only health challenge we’re facing – and recovery goes beyond the immediate response to the virus itself. Ensuring good health and well-being for all are essential for economies and societies to be resilient in the face of future health, economic and environmental challenges.

With the right recovery plan, we can stop the spread of COVID-19, eliminate health disparities and possibly even prevent the next pandemic – which will ensure that our futures are not only healthy, but also equitable and resilient.

From 25-29 January 2021, The Davos Agenda will bring global leaders together to discuss the next steps in the response to COVID-19 – and why health and economic recovery go hand-in-hand.

Building back better must include ensuring healthy futures for all – here's how.

1. Make progress towards Universal Health Coverage

“An estimated 400 million people around the world lack access to basic health services. Each year, close to 100 million people are pushed into extreme poverty because they have to cover their own health costs,” wrote the Forum’s Sofiat Akinola and former Global Shaper David Alexander Walcott.

“These numbers have increased with COVID-19 and will continue to increase as people lose jobs, health insurance and health expenditures rise due to COVID-19 related spending on testing, treatment and vaccines,” the authors note.

This is why Universal Health Coverage (UHC) matters. UHC “is about ensuring that all individuals and communities have access to the health care they need,” according to the UHC2030 Private-Sector Constituency, hosted by the Forum with the goal of driving private-sector partnerships towards achieving this goal.

Perhaps one silver lining of the pandemic is that it fast-tracked tools that can help us reach UHC – such as telemedicine and increased use of data and analytics. Now, the challenge is to ensure health systems don’t return to “normal” when the pandemic is over.

2. Prioritize mental health and wellness

COVID-19 has exacerbated the global mental health crisis. As just one troubling example, the number of adults in the United States who seriously contemplated suicide nearly doubled last spring.

But even before the pandemic, an estimated 400 million people were suffering from anxiety or depression. Meanwhile, one-third of American adults were lonely, and American millennials were experiencing rising rates of depression and hyperactivity. “Yet only around 2% of health budgets are spent on mental health,” according to Elisha London, CEO of United for Global Mental Health.

This, too, is an economic issue, because “costs associated with not addressing employees’ mental health issues cumulate to a material impact of hundreds of billions of dollars – from lower motivation and work productivity, to increased calls to mental health services, to anxiety about unprecedented family needs,” wrote Liz Hilton Segel, North America Managing Partner of McKinsey & Company.

Clearly, if we want a complete health and economic recovery, we need more investment in mental healthcare.

In the meantime, experts provide six strategies for individuals to “reboot your brain” in 2021 –including getting exercise and plenty of sleep, eating well and staying socially connected, among others. And McKinsey’s Segel provides practical tips for improving mental health in the workplace.

3. Recognize that environmental health and human health are linked

Preventing the next pandemic and ensuring healthy futures requires addressing the environment, too.

Scientists believe COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease that originated in bats and jumped to humans somewhere along the way. In fact, “around 75% of all emerging infectious diseases in humans are believed to be zoonotic,” according to the UN – including malaria, which remains one of the world’s deadliest diseases.

Now, biodiversity loss, deforestation and wildlife trafficking are causing more disease outbreaks.

“Deforestation has increased steadily over the past two decades and is linked to 31% of outbreaks such as Ebola, and the Zika and Nipah viruses. Deforestation drives wild animals out of their natural habitats and closer to human populations,” explained John Scott, Head of Sustainability Risk for Zurich Insurance Group.

“More broadly, climate change has altered and accelerated the transmission patterns of infectious diseases such as Zika, malaria and dengue fever, and has caused human displacement. Movements of large groups to new locations, often under poor conditions, increases displaced populations’ vulnerability to biological threats such as measles, malaria, diarrheal diseases and acute respiratory infections,” Scott continued.

And climate change itself is a major health risk.

“The loss of life and economic misery caused by this pandemic are on par with what will happen regularly if we do not eliminate the world’s carbon emissions,” wrote Bill Gates.

“[B]y 2060, climate change could be just as deadly as COVID-19, and by 2100 it could be five times as deadly,” Gates added.

From 25-29 January 2021, join us for special addresses, leadership panels and impact sessions that will address many of the challenges discussed above, including:

Speakers include:

You can watch the livestreamed sessions here.

Click here for our guide on how to follow #DavosAgenda.