Uppsala to host summits on health
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Medical and technological development is fast, enabling better health and longer lives, but also creating new economical challenges and ethical dilemmas. Uppsala is now working to establish a context for qualified dialogue on these issues: Uppsala Health Summit.
The first Uppsala Health Summit is planned to take place the 3 & 4 June 2014. Uppsala will invite decision-makers and opinion-makers, representatives for academy and industry to take the next step together towards better health in an aging world population.
“Uppsala’s researchers, companies, public authorities and healthcare staff contribute every day to developing the medical knowledge towards better health. Through dialogue between scientists, companies, politicians and opinion-makers we can become better at using the knowledge available in research results and products for better health”, says Anders Malmberg, Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Uppsala University and chairman of the steering group for Uppsala Health Summit.
“Uppsala Health Summit shall be characterised by dialogue across borders, both between scientific fields, professions and geographic areas. It will be more about listening and testing viewpoints than convincing others. We must understand each other’s challenges to enable for knowledge to be put into action”, says Christer Svensson, regional manager for Nordea and chairman of the Världsklass Uppsla network.
Which type of research is needed? Which decisions are necessary? Which products must be developed? How do we handle ethical dilemmas that arise? How should the healthcare be organised? Uppsala Health Summit will host this dialogue, and the subject of the first summit will be aging and health.
The number of people over 65 years old is growing in large parts of the world. Japan, Italy, Germany and Sweden had the highest support ratio in the world, with only three working inhabitants per person older than 65 years. In 2050, 22 per cent of the world population is expected to be more than 60 years old, compared to 11 per cent in the year 2000. We live longer and are healthier, but the demographic change still poses increased pressure on healthcare, resulting in increased costs.
Världsklass Uppsala is the initiator behind the Uppsala Health Summit project, which is now being organised jointly together with Uppsala University, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala County Council and Uppsala City Council. Uppsala Health Summit is run as a project within Uppsala University with Madeleine Neil as project manager.