The Welsh Health Equity Status Report initiative (WHESRi) is the first one to be established nationally and apply an innovative World Health Organization (WHO) framework. This delivers to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the WHO Regional Office for Europe and the Welsh Government, focusing on accelerating progress towards building a healthier, more equal and prosperous Wales and Europe. Its implementation is led by the WHO Office for Investment for Health and Development in Venice, Italy (the Venice Office) and the WHO Collaborating Centre on Investment for Health and Well-being (WHO CC) at Public Health Wales.
The overall aim of the WHESRi is to provide an up-to-date dynamic picture of health inequities, their burden, determinants and related policies in Wales, in order to inform solutions and investment prioritisation, as well as to facilitate a joint cross-sector whole-of-government, whole-of-society policy dialogue and action towards a Healthier, More Equal and Prosperous Wales.
Following a cutting-edge WHO methodology from the European Health Equity Status Report initiative (HESRi), the WHESRi consists of two work streams with relevant deliverables over a three-year period (2020-2022):
1) Developing a Health Equity Status Report (HESR) for Wales, including data, policy and economic analyses, aiming to inform options for policy action and investment prioritisation to reduce health inequities; and
2) Developing a digital Health Equity Solutions Platform (HESP) for Wales, including an interactive dashboard and a suite of policy, investment and other tools and resources to support and accelerate healthy prosperous lives for all in Wales and contribute to a European Health Equity Solutions Platform.
The WHESRi products will feed into and help implement the Building A Healthier Wales and the Welsh Government Transformation Programme, informing and facilitating decision-making, policy solutions and investing in prevention. This project also strengthens Wales’ influencer role, providing an insight into applying and adapting the European HESRi on a country level towards implementing the WHO Resolution on accelerating progress towards healthy, prosperous lives for all, increasing equity in health and leaving no one behind in the WHO European Region.
Welsh Health Equity Solutions Platform
The Welsh Health Equity Solutions Platform (WHESP) forms a key part of the WHESRi. The WHESP project is developing an online portal – or platform – of intelligence and innovative tools to inform and enable the translation of high quality evidence into decision-making, policy and practice aimed at achieving healthy, prosperous lives for all in Wales and beyond. It will bring together available data with policies, health economics and modelling, and evidence to support sustainable solutions to reduce health inequity and improve health and well-being.
The WHESP will link with the European Health Equity Status Report dataset, providing an exemplar for other countries and regions, in support of the European Health Equity Solutions Platform and Alliance and the implementation of the WHO European Resolution on Health Equity.
You can access the WHESP here: WHESP (solutionsplatform.co.uk)
