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Heart health on the agenda at the World Economic Forum

22 Jan 2016

Heart health continues to be on the agenda, including at the World Economic Forum in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland (20-23 January), where non-communicable diseases in general are part of several high-profile sessions

In 2010 the WEF listed NCDs as one of the top global risks, which helped to push NCDs up on the global health agenda.  Now WEF is looking at health across all sectors, and how the private and public sectors can support the Sustainable Development Goal of maximizing healthy life years across all ages.

World Heart Federation CEO and NCD Alliance Vice Chair Johanna Ralston is participating in events at the World Economic Forum, including on 22 January:

Investing in Human Capital: Strengthening Health with C-Suite Decision-making

The focus of this event is on encouraging the C-Suite to invest in health as an asset – health among employees and communities, health in the supply chain, and health as an outcome of products and services.

World Heart Federation continue to focus on workplace wellness programmes through our partnership with Bupa. A new report on this topic by The Vitality Institute has also been launched at the above event, focusing on how to encourage investors to prioritize corporate reporting on health, as the environmental and sustainability movements have done.

Another notable session, which focuses on investing in health for economic value in addition to its other benefits, is Health is the Bottom Line, considering questions such as: what needs to happen for health to be considered a material risk that should be reported on; and what about a company’s impact on consumer health?