TOGETHER WE page i
INSPIRE EDITION 4 OCTOBER 2021 STAKEHOLDERS ARE CALLED UPON TO TAKE URGENT ACTION TO OPTIMISE THE HEALTH AND WELL-BEING OF PEOPLE AND THE LIVING WORLD.
DR. NICOLE DE PAULA
COP26: HOW CAN WE ACHIEVE PLANETARY HEALTH?
page ii
INTRODUCTION Welcome to the World Health Innovation Summit (WHIS), a platform for sustainable development to improve the world that we live in, now and for the future. Our digital magazine, WHIS Inspire, is a way in which we can explore the fields of healthcare and sustainability on a global scale while openly sharing knowledge and developing solutions together. Through this, we provide inspiring content that is dedicated to the innovative advanced across the globe, designed to give the tools and inspiration that empower individuals and their communities to make a difference to their lives and others. In September 2015, 193 heads of state pledged their commitment to implement the 17 Sustainable Development Goals at the United
Nations. Throughout the magazine, you’ll find interesting stories from our colleagues and friends around the world who are leading positive change and implementing the sustainable development goals. We have partnered with the UNGSII Foundation which was created to assist and accelerate the implementation process their mission is to ensure that the world reaches its goal, at the latest, by 2030. Our role is to support the Foundation with the implementation of sustainable development goal 3, Good Health & Wellbeing.
www.whis.world Twitter
contact@whisinspire.com Join us on social media using the hashtag #WHIS
page iii
MEET THE TEAM THIS MAGAZINE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY A CREATIVE TEAM OF YOUNG PROFESSIONALS THAT ARE FULL OF INNOVATIVE IDEAS AND DESIGNS.
EMILY DODD
JOSH ENTWISTLE
ANNA CUTTERIDGE
Director & Editor in Chief
Director of Design
Writer & Journalist
Emily has a demonstrated history in creative copy and content writing and loves nothing more than creating meaningful media that inspires others. With extensive experience and a keen eye for detail, she has built a comprehensive portfolio of written work for clients across various sectors.
Josh is a talented graphic designer who has worked with a range of clients and boasts a broad background in a variety of different industries. With a lifelong passion for the creative arts, Josh has a strong focus on editorial design and commercial branding. He takes pride in producing unique designs that reinforce a brand’s ethos and values.
Anna is a Journalist and Psychotherapist from London. With experience working in a range of mental health settings, she writes articles and interviews exploring psychology, philosophy, and contemporary arts with her blog and seeks new and inspiring stories to share.
GARETH PRESCH Founder & CEO of WHIS Gareth is a social entrepreneur, problem solver and healthcare strategist who believes in sharing knowledge for the greater good. He is the founder and CEO of the World Health Innovation Summit (WHIS), UNGSII Expert Lead for SDG3/4, Member of the Pope Francis Vatican COVID-19 Commission, and Founder of the Global Social Prescribing Alliance.
page iv
CO-CREATING A BETTER FUTURE EMILY DODD Director & Editor in Chief WHIS Media
As we near COP26, we are reminded of the climate crisis and the irrefutable damage that our planet is facing. As the Greenland icesheet melts and the Amazon dries out, the Earth will no longer mask our warming and instead accelerate it if current conditions aren’t reversed. What we need now, more than ever, is a sense of dynamism and urgency. Humanity has never faced such a desperate challenge as the one presented by climate change, and extraordinary solutions will be required if catastrophe is to be avoided.
“All the innovation, wealth and political will in the world will not be enough to save our civilisations. Our natural world will go from being our biggest ally to our biggest foe.” – Sir David Attenborough
Six years on from the 2015 Paris Agreement, COP26 is a key moment to reflect on our progress but also ramp up commitments to ensure that our climate action targets will be met in the short, medium, and long terms. With 30,000 delegates due to attend the conference from almost every country in the world, now is the time to look towards the future and realise the solutions we need to make together to reverse this disaster before it’s too late. Human activities are increasingly influencing the climate and the earth’s temperature – there is no doubt that human contribution has impacted the future of our planet. Global cooperation is necessary if we are to address what is truly the greatest challenge of all time. Whether we succeed in building a sustainable future depends on how we approach the challenge of designing and implementing solutions to this intractable problem.
page v
At this critical moment, when our biodiversity faces unprecedented pressure, the São Paulo Declaration on Planetary Health was launched earlier this month. Signed by over 250 organisations from more than 47 countries representing all sectors of society, it calls upon key stakeholders to take urgent action to safeguard a healthy and equitable future for humanity and protect all life on Earth. Dr. Nicole de Paula is just one of the many people supporting this declaration. As a pioneer in the field of planetary health, she is bridging the gaps between the health and environmental sectors through gender-just solutions. Founder of the Women Leaders for Planetary Health, Nicole champions the socioeconomic advancement of women through environmental conservation and public health policies to make the UN Sustainable Development Goals a reality by 2030. The São Paulo Declaration on Planetary Health demonstrates that while everyone has their own unique role, only by working together as a global community, rooted in planetary health principles, can we co-create a better future that optimises the health and well-being of people and the living world. That principle alone is just what we must recognise to understand how to achieve these goals and build a better world together.
The fate of the world depends on humanity’s response to climate change, and it’s up to you to play your part in this. Each of us has a responsibility for the planet in which we live, and with that, we must have a proactive mindset to create a sustainable future together. We each need to advocate for a better world so that we can improve the health and wellbeing of people and the planet and create a future we’re all proud of.
READ MORE
In this edition of WHIS Inspire, we look at climate change, pandemic recovery and SDG acceleration worldwide, along with the ways in which we are making a positive impact through the inspiring work of changemakers in our communities. We want to inspire readers and enable them to discover the various accomplishments around the globe and learn how to support a healthier, happier world.
What action will you take?
page vi
WHIS UPDATES STAY UP TO DATE AND VIEW OUR VIDEOS & WEBINARS, LISTEN TO OUR WHIS PODCASTS OR WATCH OUR WHIS TALKS.
2021 SO FAR June • •
7th-25th: Arts for SDGs exhibition takes place (partnered with WHIS) 27th-30th: Gareth will be Chairing the SDGs and Cities at the World Health Summit Regional Meeting in Uganda
July •
9th: WHIS Talks Webinar on Digital Healthcare & Health Literacy
World Health Innovation Summit talks at The Good Summit in Dublin to discuss Good Health and Wellbeing opportunities
WHAT’S NEXT? WHAT DOES THE REST OF THE YEAR HAVE IN STORE... November • •
September •
•
23rd: SDG3 Global Student Alliance for Social Prescribing Launch in London 25th: Global Goals Concerts and SDG Finance Conference for 25+5
1st-12th: COP26, Glasgow 25th: 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence
December • •
20th-24th: SDG1 Dinner Concerts for Humanity 3rd-6th: SCR500 – 2021 Champions, Abu Dhabi
October • • • •
•
17th-21st: World Investment Forum UNCTAD, Abu Dhabi 22nd-24th: UNGSII SDG Champions Conference, San Marino 23rd-25th: World UN Day - Youth Implementation 27th: The Good Summit event at Trinity College, Dublin (partnered with WHIS) 29th-31st: SDG Cities Conference UNHABITAT, Shanghai
2022 January •
16th-20th: World Economic Forum, Davos
page vii
SDG CITIES GLOBAL CONFERENCE 29TH - 31ST OCTOBER 2021
The virtual SDG Cities Global Conference, jointly hosted by UN-Habitat and the Municipality of Shanghai, with the Global Sustainability Index Institute, aligns with World Cities Day (WCD). WCD is themed ‘Adapting Cities for Climate Resilience’ and provides urban contributions to the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) that immediately follows. The Conference links climate change, pandemic recovery and SDG acceleration in cities, and will introduce the Global Urban Monitoring Framework as well as the City Investment Facility. It reflects on progress in urban monitoring and local reporting and brings into focus transformative actions by cities to accelerate SDG impacts. The SDG Cities complements and supports the efforts of cities worldwide to advance the achievement of SDGs by promoting collaborative action and providing an array of digital tools and expert backstopping.
Gareth Presch, CEO World Health Innovation Summit, will moderate the session ‘Health, wellbeing and resilience to pandemic in Cities’ on Sunday 31st October. The session will explore new models of health and wellbeing in cities that create value based on prevention, early intervention and the use of digital empowerment, with the aim to enable people and communities to thrive and improve their health and wellbeing, support existing health services, create new and meaningful jobs while supporting the implementation of the 17 sustainable development goals in cities around the world.
C I T I ES WO RL DW ID E H AVE A S I GNI F I CA NT R O LE TO P L AY IN AC H I E V I NG GLO BA L S USTA IN A B L E D EV ELO PM E NT...
55% of the world’s population live in urban areas and an additional 2.5 billion urban residents expected in the next 30 years
65% of SDG targets are relevant to cities
Maimunah Mohd Sharif, Executive Director UN-HABITAT
VIEW THE MESSAGE FROM UN SECRETARY-GENERAL ON WORLD CITIES DAY
page viii
PATIENT EMPOWERMENT & SHARED DECISIONS WEBINAR WHIS Talks hosted a webinar on Patient Empowerment and Shared Decisions, where Gareth Presch spoke with global healthcare thought leaders about patient empowerment and shared decisions, including Susanne Baars from Siemens Healthineers.
“Everything I do has one goal, and that is to make personalised healthcare accessible and affordable for every human on the planet... Although science and technologies are evolving, there is so much more we can do.” - Susanne Baars, Global Senior Thought Leader Siemens Healthineers
page ix
16 DAYS OF ACTIVISM AGAINST GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE 25TH NOVEMBER - 10TH DECEMBER 2021 The 16 Days of Activism against GenderBased Violence is an annual international campaign that kicks off on 25th November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and runs until 10th December, Human Rights Day. It was started by activists at the inaugural Women’s Global Leadership Institute in 1991 and continues to be coordinated each year by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership. It is used as an organizing strategy by individuals and organizations around the world to call for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls. In support of this civil society initiative, the United Nations Secretary-General’s UNiTE by 2030 to End Violence against Women campaign (UNiTE campaign) calls for global actions to increase awareness, galvanize advocacy efforts, and share knowledge and innovations. 2021 marks the 30th anniversary of the Global 16 Days Campaign, and the theme for this year’s 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence is “Orange the world: End violence against women now!”
“Orange the world: End violence against women now!”
READ MORE
CANCER AWARENESS CAMPAIGN SEPTEMBER 24TH 2021 On World Cancer Research Day, SolaVieve in collaboration with the World Health Innovation Summit launched their Cancer Awareness Campaign to support people around the world access resources that can be used to educate themselves on cancer prevention and healthy living. You can follow the campaign #AwarenessIsOurRole and access the range of resources on Breast, Lung, Prostate, Cervical and Colorectal Cancer online, here. Are the chances of getting lung cancer higher if you are a smoker? Can weight loss be a sign of colorectal cancer? Is cervical cancer sexually transmitted? Can breast cancer be linked to genetics? Are vasectomies a risk factor for prostate cancer? If you’d like to find out the answers to these questions and boost your awareness of cancer prevention, make sure to keep reading! SolaVieve, in collaboration with the World Health Innovation Summit (WHIS), has launched a cancer awareness campaign aimed entirely at increasing public visibility and awareness about cancer prevention. Cancer is the leading cause of death worldwide, accounting for nearly 10 million deaths in 2020 (WHO). Through this campaign, SolaVieve hopes to act as a community-building tool and a resource people can use to educate themselves on cancer prevention and healthy living.
Cancer is a very common group of diseases, yet sometimes very little is known about the different classifications. Complexities of the various types of cancers vary from person to person; no two people experience the same symptoms, treatments, and overall journey. Numerous sources offer us readily available information, yet people still struggle to find answers to their questions. With this campaign, SolaVieve and WHIS aim to increase awareness of the benefits of healthy lifestyle choices and check-ups, while simultaneously promoting recognition of risk factors, symptoms, and prevalence. The focus is on prevention: adopting healthy lifestyles that can help us improve our overall wellbeing. With downloadable brochures and extensive social media coverage, this campaign is designed to provide a better understanding of lung cancer, colorectal cancer, cervical cancer, breast cancer, and prostate cancer, with special attention on data from the UK, Germany, and India.
Cancer mortality is a significant barrier to increasing life expectancy worldwide. Lung cancer is the overall leading cause of cancer death (18.0% of the total cancer deaths). But what are the most commonly diagnosed types of cancer? According to the WHO, in 2020 they were:
2.26
million cases breast cancer
2.21
million cases lung cancer
1.93
million cases colorectal cancer
1.41
million cases prostate cancer Breast
Lung
Colorectal
Prostate
Cervical READ MORE
page xii
CONTENTS WHIS INSPIRE Page 01
Page 05
COP26 UN Climate Change Conference Of The Parties
Musculoskeletal Health Fixing The Leak, Not Building A Bigger Bucket
Page 02
Page 07
Human Hotel The COP26 Homestay Network
Continulus Educating Healthcare Professionals For A Better World
Page 03
Page 09
Red Noses Humour As Psychosocial Support In Healthcare Settings
Nutritank Bringing Nutrition Education Into The Medical Curriculum
page xiii
C O N T R I B U TO R S THANK YOU TO EVERYONE INVOLVED Page 11 The Great Transition São Paulo Declaration On Planetary Health
Ben Wilkins David Dickinson
Page 12 The SDG Report Reflecting On The Sustainable Development Goals
Debs Teale Dr. Eoghan Colgan
Page 15 Cities Investment Facility An Initiative To Build Sustainable Cities Around The World
Page 17 Arts For SDGs A Webinar On Art Impact For Healthcare
Page 19 Good Boost Fit For Life’s 2021 Award Winners
Investment Monitor Isabelle Wachsmuth Jack Lowe Larry O’Farrell Dr. Nicole de Paula
Page 21 Information For Wellbeing An Initiative Of The World Health Innovation Summit
Rachel White RED NOSES International SolaVieve Sue Brown
page 1
UN CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE OF THE PARTIES (COP26) 31ST OCTOBER - 12TH NOVEMBER 2021
Delayed by a year due to the pandemic, the UK will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow, UK on 31 October – 12 November 2021. The COP26 summit will bring parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Around the world storms, floods and wildfires are intensifying. Air pollution sadly affects the health of tens of millions of people and unpredictable weather causes untold damage to homes and livelihoods too. But while the impacts of climate change are devastating, advances in tackling it are leading to cleaner air, creating good jobs, restoring nature and at the same time unleashing economic growth. Despite the opportunities we are not acting fast enough. To avert this crisis, countries need to join forces urgently. In November, the UK, in partnership with Italy, will host an event many believe to be the world’s last best chance to get runaway climate change under control. For nearly three decades the UN has been bringing together almost every country on earth for global climate summits - called COPs - which stands for ‘Conference of the Parties’. In that time, climate change has gone from being a fringe issue to a global priority. This year will be the 26th annual summit – giving it the name COP26. With the UK as President, COP26 takes place in Glasgow. In the run up to COP26 the UK is working with every nation to reach agreement on how to tackle climate change. More than 190 world leaders are expected to arrive in Scotland, together with tens of thousands of negotiators, government representatives, businesses and citizens for twelve days of talks.
“Climate change is the greatest risk facing us all.” Why is COP26 so important? The Paris Agreement was agreed at COP21 in 2015. For the first time ever, it saw almost every country around the world enter into a legally binding commitment to reduce emissions. Every country signed up to cutting carbon emissions to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees and aim for 1.5 degrees, to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate and to make money available to deliver on these aims. The Paris Agreement also set out ambitious goals on adaptation and on finance, recognising that many people around the world are already experiencing the impacts of a changing climate, and that support - financial, technical and capacity building - would be needed. The run up to this year’s summit in Glasgow is the moment when countries update their plans for reducing emissions. But, the commitments laid out in Paris did not come close to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, and the window for achieving this is closing. The decade out to 2030 will be crucial. So as momentous as Paris was, countries must go much further to keep the hope of holding temperature rises to 1.5 degrees alive.
READ MORE
page 2
HUMAN HOTEL THE COP26 HOMESTAY NETWORK
The COP26 Homestay Network is one of the most environmentally-friendly and affordable accommodation solutions in Glasgow during the UN Climate Conference. It offers affordable accommodation for visitors to Glasgow and allows hosts to open their home (and their heart) to an international network of visiting activists, scientists and policymakers, while creating the opportunity to build new friendships and support the local community instead of hotel chains or private landlords. People from countries least responsible for, and most affected by, the climate crisis are often unable to attend important conferences due to lack of resources. This network ensures that everyone has the best chance of being there to make their voices heard. Hundreds of people in the Central Belt of Scotland are opening their doors to offer free or low-cost accommodation for those who really need it; from shared rooms, private rooms, or entire homes. Homesharing is the most socially and environmentally sustainable accommodation, and helps visitors make the lowest environmental impact from their trip.
LOWEST COST. SMALLEST FOOTPRINT. WARMEST WELCOME.
READ MORE
“Staying with a local host can reduce your emissions by more than 80% and energy usage by more than 70% compared to a hotel stay.”
page 3
HUMOUR AS PSYCHOSOCIAL SUPPORT IN HEALTHCARE SETTINGS RED NOSES INTERNATIONAL Fear, anxiety, stress, sadness, and uncertainty are all common emotions for patients admitted to any healthcare institution. For long-term patients, boredom can be added to the list. Traditionally, there has been a lack of focus on the emotions of the individual human being when hospitalized, despite the best efforts, and instead a sole focus on the given disease or injury that needs to be treated, a focus on precise procedures. This is of course very understandable; people are in healthcare institutions not out of choice but out of necessity. When people are hospitalized, whether short- or long-term, they are ripped out of their ordinary lives and thrust into a parallel and very different world.
Healthcare clowning addresses several issues that are commonplace when people, especially children, are hospitalized. The mission statement of RED NOSES is to bring humour and laughter to people in need of joy. This reflects the deep needs of patients, their relatives, and the staff of healthcare institutions to feel alive and connected, through laughter and joy. RED NOSES is an international healthcare clowning organisation that works in healthcare institutions of all sorts in 11 countries in Europe and the Middle East. RED NOSES has been continuously expanding the scope of its operations since its founding in 1994 in Vienna, Austria. Which issues are healthcare clowns universally addressing through their work? All the emotional challenges faced by hospitalized patients mentioned above are addressed by professionally trained healthcare clowns. Through humour and the almost Jungian-archetype-like nature of the clown itself, patients can regain an access to their emotions that is often severed by stress. The basic premise of clowning is that clowns accept every situation and never judge. This lets the patients feel a sense of relief, a sense of being understood without being put under scrutiny. By adding humour and playfulness to their encounter, clowns reach patients on an emotional level, cleverly bypassing defences through their (rehearsed) innocent naïveté and lightness. Clowns live in the present moment; they never give up, they inspire vitality and resilience. In this way, healthcare clowns can help patients to better accept their situation and work through their difficult emotions, all while they avoid being intrusive.
page 4
And of course, healthcare clowns bring excitement and fun! Many patients simply get lifted out of their worried or bored state of mind and daily routines by the atmosphere of celebration that healthcare clowns bring with them. Stress and fear can in this way be replaced by playful creativity. Clowns will lower their ‘status’ when needed for the patients to exert some level of control over their situation, giving the patients a feeling of being active agents in a setting where they are otherwise anything but. A growing number of rigorous, peer-reviewed studies conclude that healthcare clowns have a genuine impact on mental and even physical health. Research also shows that it is not only the patients who interact with clowns that benefit; their relatives (parents especially) and the healthcare staff also benefit. Most countries in the Western World have welldeveloped healthcare clowning organisations, and more and more countries throughout the world are following this trend, as the benefits of educated healthcare clowning become apparent. Here it is worth mentioning a ground-breaking 2019-report from WHO[1] that detailed the myriad connections that exist between art and health, including the positive effects of healthcare clowning. Looking to the future, RED NOSES is developing new humour seminars for healthcare personnel, in schools and universities, as well as in healthcare institutions, focusing on the benefits of introducing humour in healthcare and how it can be applied to reduce stress and enhance inter-collegial cooperation. This could perhaps become an asset in combatting the expected future shortage of nurses, as the nursing profession is predicted to face significant recruitment challenges, as the need for care grows and stress levels increase. RED NOSES would like to see arts and culture become integral parts of the efforts to improve health and wellbeing outcomes as per SDG 3. It is RED NOSES’ determination to keep working tirelessly for a more gentle, more empathetic and, yes, a more humorous healthcare system.
READ MORE
page 5
SUE BROWN CEO of the Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance (ARMA) VIEW CONTRIBUTOR’S BIO
FIXING THE LEAK, NOT BUILDING A BIGGER BUCKET THINKING DIFFERENTLY FOR MSK HEALTH CONFERENCE Musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions are the leading cause of years lived with disability world wide and in the UK. You would not know that from the amount of attention they get compared with other health conditions such as cancer. The majority of MSK conditions do not kill, at least not directly. But the impact they have on people, communities and economies should not be underestimated.
MSK conditions are the second most common reason for work days lost in the UK
page 6
Our MSK health is fundamental to our ability to live active, healthy independent lives, to grow well, live well and age well. The pain and lack of mobility of MSK conditions leads people to reduce or give up work, prevents them caring for family members, and can lead to depression, anxiety and isolation. The Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance (ARMA) brings together patient and professional organisations to influence policy and practice in the UK for improved MSK health and services. In the last year we have seen the profile of MSK rising up the NHS agenda, in England at least. Some of this is due to the pandemic, and the backlog of care created at the hight of the pandemic. But it is also a recognition that MSK services as they existed were not fit for purpose. An ageing and increasingly inactive population meant rising need for everything from physiotherapy services to joint replacement surgery. Meeting this need simply with increasing capacity of services cannot be long term solution. We need to think differently. We need to start with prevention. Many MSK conditions are not inevitable. There are significant differences in the incidence of osteoarthritis and back pain between areas of high deprivation and more affluent areas. These underlying determinants of health need to be tackled if we are to be able to provide vital services for people living with MSK conditions.
There are also inequalities in access to treatments. People in deprived areas, on average, wait longer for treatment than those in the least deprived areas. England’s NHS is now beginning to take this seriously and look at the reasons for this unequal access and seek solutions. Valuable lessons have been learned during the pandemic about engaging with communities to increase take up of the COVID-19 vaccine. This learning now needs to be applied to other health equality challenges. Many people will live with these conditions long term. How they manage this will make a huge difference to how disabling the condition is. Instead of doing very little for people when they are first diagnosed, waiting until they need surgery or are in such severe pain that they need specialist input, we need to intervene early and support people to understand and manage their condition. We have to think differently about MSK health. We cannot continue to deal with the leak by building a bigger bucket – we need to fix the leak. All of these issues will be discussed and debated at our virtual conference on 6 December: Thinking Differently for MSK Health. There will be inspiring examples of where people are making a difference now, and how we can start to think very differently about MSK health and the support that people living with MSK conditions need. Speakers include Gareth Presch, Founder and CEO World Health Innovation Summit. Details of the conference and our other activity and resources including webinars, reports and our monthly newsletter, can be found here.
18.8 Million people in the UK have an MSK condition. READ MORE
page 7
CONTINULUS EDUCATING HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS FOR A BETTER WORLD
A near-fatal dose of Cerebral Malaria in the Ivory Coast in 1998 put Dr Eoghan Colgan on a path to found Continulus, a healthcare EdTech platform making courses and lectures with world experts accessible, affordable, and inclusive for all healthcare professionals. He was a second-year medical student passionate to work as a humanitarian doctor and was seeking the experience he felt he would need.
In 2011, Eoghan left the music industry to get married and start a family with his now-wife, Gianna, and it was then his frustrations with Continuing Professional Development began. “I was catching up with my career, and I wanted to go to the big conferences, but they are costly, require time away from work and family, and they leave a huge carbon footprint. And if it was difficult for me, what about those in remoter communities and lower-resource countries?”
“All I wanted to do was to become a paediatrician and work for Médecins Sans Frontières, and I never managed either of those things”, he says. Ill-health persisted for several years after he got home, and he would be advised not to return to Africa “for a number of years”.
“Wouldn’t it be great for all healthcare professionals around the world to share an equal opportunity to learn from the leading experts in the world and access the latest recommended best-practice at a time, pace and place that suits them, in an environmentally friendly and socially responsible way?” he says.
On that fateful trip, he also discovered a passion for music. “I was already an amateur guitarist and singer, but my brother gave me Jeff Buckley’s ‘Grace’ album on a cassette which would become my only comfort through the illness. I played that album on repeat and fell in love with it”, he recalls. He vowed to pursue music as far as he could, and following several years working as a junior doctor and gigging in his spare evenings, he was ‘discovered in London and left medicine for four years to ‘do music’. “I just didn’t want to regret not trying”.
So with a loan from his dad and a few credit cards, Eoghan built a healthcare EdTech platform that brings the world’s experts online fairly and equitably. All lectures are free, with a monthly subscription for premium features subsidised in middle-income countries and free in low-income countries. Plus, Continulus donates 4% of all sales to Médecins Sans Frontières, the organisation Eoghan had wanted to work for. “My brother worked for a year with MSF in Afghanistan, and I was so proud of him. So Continulus is a way for me to contribute to the humanitarian effort,” he explains.
The initial campaign began on 9th July 2021. When asked for a few of his highlights, he says: “playing in Hyde Park, Sir Tom Jones playing support act to me, and writing the soundtrack to Vanessa Kirby’s (recently Oscar-nominated actress) first movie. I’m also the wedding singer in her (Vanessa) first-ever on-screen appearance, but I doubt she remembers me!”.
Continulus is sharing access with healthcare professionals, hospitals, and national societies from 131 countries and is now using their expertise to build education solutions for others. “We started before the pandemic, so we have expertise in online learning. We’re helping to build online education programmes in Africa, Asia and elsewhere.”
page 8
“If anyone is reading that would like to share access to world-class healthcare education, or needs help to build remote education solutions, then please reach out to us. This is our passion.”
READ MORE
page 9
BRINGING NUTRITION EDUCATION INTO THE MEDICAL CURRICULUM
Nutritank is an innovative information hub for food, nutrition and lifestyle medicine. It is promoting the need for greater education in medical training around nutrition and lifestyle medicine. Nutritank was created in 2017 by two UK medical students (now junior doctors) Dr Iain Broadley and Dr Ally Jaffee, as they were both frustrated by the lack of nutrition in their course whilst studying at Bristol University.
What is the problem? The General Medical Council (GMC) publishes guidelines on the competencies expected from UK medical schools, however there are no set quantities or qualities for nutrition education. A recent study found that 95% of participants (medical students and doctors) believed that doctors play an important role in providing nutrition care, yet 70% reported receiving fewer than 2 hours of nutrition teaching whilst at medical school (Macaninch et al., 2020). Lack of knowledge has been reported as the most common barrier to providing nutrition advice for patients. A comprehensive review is required to really understand where the gaps in nutrition education lie.
Why Nutritank is there to fill the gap and solve this problem
RACHEL WHITE Lead Dietitian for Nutritank VIEW CONTRIBUTOR’S BIO
Nutritank now has 25 medical school branches with over 600 medical students and junior doctors signed up to support the cause. They aim to provide their members and followers with evidencedbased information on nutrition and lifestyle to enable them to utilise this in their training and careers to enable their patients to make positive and sustainable changes to improve their health. As well as championing improved nutrition education, they are also raising this issue within the media. Using their social media and podcast to increase their reach has been hugely successful.
page 10
Challenges, achievements and collaborations
Vision for future and upcoming projects
Getting nutrition into the curriculum hasn’t been easy, there are a number of barriers including full teaching schedules and limited student engagement. Nutritank is currently reviewing the current national medical curricula within the Association for Nutrition inter-professional working group tasked by the GMC. This has been a 3 year project working alongside other stakeholders including the British Dietetic Association. The new curriculum will be published in Autumn. They have formed a coalition with NNedPro Global Centre for Nutrition and Health and Culinary Medicine UK who share the belief in promoting greater nutrition and lifestyle medicine in medical education. The co-founders have recently been accepted on the NHS clinical entrepreneur training programme. This programme aims to provide its participants with the skills, knowledge and experience to successfully develop and spread innovative solutions to challenges facing the NHS to benefit both patients and staff. They have won a number of awards including the Pat Llewellyn New Talent Award in the BBC Food and Farming Award in 2019, and co-Founder Dr Jaffee being awarded the prestigious Diana Award in July.
Nutritank has several exciting upcoming projects including a weight stigma education project, cooking programmes in mental health facilities and ongoing expansion of the junior doctors network. Also Agrinourish; a farming project getting medics onto farms to learn about the food system in a practical manner.
READ MORE
Their vision for the future is to work proactively with dietitians and other registered nutrition professionals to provide basic dietary advice and refer appropriately. Nutritank are driving changes to the curriculum. Integrating nutrition into current modules, rather than a standalone module, would be more beneficial to allow students to appreciate the relevance of nutrition and its application in different clinical specialities. Nutritank hopes to be at the forefront of conversations and action around the intersection between food, lifestyle and health, and to become the go-to hub for information and community engagement.
SÃO PAULO DECLARATION ON PLANETARY HEALTH The COVID-19 pandemic is the most recent in a series of distress signals ringing around the world. Climate change, biodiversity loss, and destruction of the quality of air, water, and soil are eroding the fundamental life support systems that we all depend on. From tropical storms devastating populations across the Caribbean and Pacific, historic heat waves and fires from North America to Australia and the Amazon, to the worst locust outbreak in 70 years destroying crops in East Africa, lives and livelihoods have been lost particularly among the most poor and marginalised communities. Every dimension of human health and well-being is now affected by global environmental change. The planetary health science is clear: we can no longer safeguard human health unless we change course. We need a fundamental shift in how we live on Earth, what we are calling the Great Transition. Achieving the Great Transition will require rapid and deep structural changes across most dimensions of human activity. This includes how we produce and consume food, energy, and manufactured goods; how we construct and live in our cities; and how we consider and measure growth, progress and development, and govern ourselves. It will also require rethinking our values and relationship within Nature and to each other from human exceptionalism, domination, and scarcity to interdependence, equity, and regeneration. The Great Transition offers the possibility of greater richness of experience, greater well-being, and an enhanced opportunity for all beings to thrive. It will take practitioners, scholars, and policy makers across every dimension of human activity working together. It will require listening to, integrating, and amplifying voices in every community from Indigenous Peoples, faith traditions, artists, entrepreneurs, to scientists. Every person, in every place, from every calling, has a role to play in safeguarding the health of the planet and people for future generations.
READ MORE
The planetary health community raised concern that the ongoing degradation of our planet’s natural systems is a clear and present danger to the health of all people everywhere. At the 2021 Planetary Health Annual Meeting in São Paulo, Brazil, the planetary health community produced the São Paulo Declaration on Planetary Health, an initiative of Planetary Health Alliance and the University of São Paulo, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Within this, they call upon key stakeholders to take urgent action to safeguard a healthy and equitable future for humanity and protect all life on Earth. The declaration outlines a series of recommendations in which stakeholders can follow as well as the actions necessary for us to achieve the Great Transition, a just transformation to a world that optimises the health and wellbeing of all people and the planet. It demonstrates that while everyone has their own unique role, only by working together as a global community, rooted in planetary health principles, can we co-create to achieve the Great Transition and optimise the health and well-being of people and the living world.
View Source
THE SDG REPORT page 12
EXTRACTS OF THE FOREWORD FROM ANTÓNIO GUTERRES, SECRETARY-GENERAL UNITED NATIONS The global community is at a critical moment in its pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). More than a year into the global pandemic, millions of lives have been lost, the human and economic toll has been unprecedented, and recovery efforts so far have been uneven, inequitable and insufficiently geared towards achieving sustainable development. The current crisis is threatening decades of development gains, further delaying the urgent transition to greener, more inclusive economies, and throwing progress on the SDGs even further off track. Progress had been made in poverty reduction, maternal and child health, access to electricity, and gender equality, but not enough to achieve the Goals by 2030. In other vital areas, including reducing inequality, lowering carbon emissions and tackling hunger, progress had either stalled or reversed. As the pandemic continues to unfold, The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2021 outlines some significant impacts in many areas that are already apparent. The global extreme poverty rate rose for the first time in over 20 years, and 119 to 124 million people were pushed back into extreme poverty in 2020. There is a risk of a generational catastrophe regarding schooling, where an additional 101 million children have fallen below the minimum reading proficiency level, potentially wiping out two decades of education gains. Women have faced increased domestic violence, child marriage is projected to rise after a decline in recent years, and unpaid and underpaid care work is increasingly and disproportionately falling on the shoulders of women and girls, impacting educational and income opportunities and health. Notwithstanding the global economic
READ MORE
slowdown, concentrations of major greenhouse gases continue to increase. With the global average temperature reaching about 1.2°C above pre-industrial levels, the climate crisis has well and truly arrived, and its impacts are being felt across the world. The pandemic has also brought immense financial challenges, especially for developing countries – with a significant rise in debt distress and dramatic decreases in foreign direct investment and trade. Yet, with a surge in global solidarity and leadership from the highest political level, countries can still deliver on the 2030 Agenda and the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change. A recommitment by Governments, cities, businesses, and industries to ensure that the recovery reduces carbon emissions, conserves natural resources, creates better jobs, advances gender equality and tackles growing poverty and inequalities is a further imperative. As this report shows, the availability of high-quality data is also critical, helping decision makers to understand where investments can have the greatest impact; but improved data collection will not happen without increased data financing, from both international and domestic resources. The challenges are immense, but there are also reasons for hope. The COVID-19 crisis demonstrated inspiring community resilience, highlighted the Herculean work by essential workers in myriad fields and facilitated the rapid expansion of social protection, the acceleration of digital transformation and unprecedented worldwide collaboration on the development of vaccines. A brighter future is possible. We must use the crisis to transform our world, deliver on the 2030 Agenda and keep our promise to current and future generations.
page 13
“Surprisingly, there was no decision aid I could personally recommend for patients in my practice who were considering their surgical options after a breast cancer diagnosis. So, I put a team of experts together and we created our own… the Breast Advocate® App is the World’s first shared decisionmaking app specifically for breast cancer surgery and breast reconstruction. Regardless of the patient’s diagnosis and situation, Breast Advocate® provides all the information and tools patients need to take a more active role in their consultations, and participate fully in the decisions about their treatment.” – Dr Minas Chrysopoulo, Founder and Co-Creator of the Breast Advocate App
Learn more and download free at: www.BreastAdvocateApp.com
page 14
AN ESSENTIAL GATHERING OF ESG EXPERTS, INVESTORS AND ADVOCATES
Client, company and investor interest have all increased exponentially when it comes to ESG in recent years. The attractiveness of ESG projects -- whether that be to diversify investment portfolios, improve corporate image or adhere to government regulations -- is not set to diminish any time soon. Expectations on all sides are evolving. Consumers and employees increasingly want companies to walk the walk on corporate social responsibility, while many investment destinations are becoming choosier about the types of investors they attract to their jurisdictions. A shift from stakeholder to shareholder capitalism demands a new approach. As a result, balancing ESG criteria with profitable investment strategies has become an urgent quandary.
How is ESG-led investment impacting governments, companies and economies, and how are these entities defining their societal priorities in today’s postCovid world? What can be done to avoid hypocrisies and how do strategies differ between countries? This one-day event will aim to explore the complexities of impact investment through a series of high-level panel discussions and exclusive insights from keynote speakers. Join Investment Monitor and our esteemed speaker line up to explore the future of impact investing.
FOR MORE DETAILS & TO REGISTER, VISIT: www.arena-international.com/esg/
page 15
CITIES INVESTMENT FACILITY CIF With the population in cities worldwide growing by 1.5 million each week, about 68% of the world’s population shall live in cities by 2050. 90% of this urban growth will occur in developing countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. City infrastructure enables economic activity and growth, yet this rapid urbanisation and infrastructure growth in the world’s poorest cities is fuelling an annual infrastructure financing gap in excess of US$3.2 trillion per year globally.
WH AT I S CIF ? The Cities Investment Facility (CIF) is a multistakeholder initiative centered around unlocking significant capital flows to urban impact projects, by supporting their processes of ideation, design, financing, and implementation, using a series of partnership-based instruments. It is a platform that connects investors with sustainable city projects to build a more resilient and liveable urban future.
SUBMIT YOUR PROJECT HERE
Through its three pillars – Cities Investment Portal, Cities Investment Advisory Platform and Cities Investment Vehicles – CIF helps prepare upstream infrastructure projects at the (pre) feasibility stage to become “bankable” and connect them with investors. By convening and preparing a pipeline of SDG compliant bankable infrastructure projects, this new facility makes a significant contribution to achieving the UN’s Agenda 2030. This facility complements existing investment facilities by looking at enhancing early-stage design and origination particularly in secondary cities in frontier and emerging markets. It is further unique in its focus on the broad range of the SDGs, urban masterplan-integrated projects, and its global scope with a project pipeline spanning across three main regions and ten sub-sectors.
page 16
Submit a sustainable urban infrastructure project
The Cities Investment Facility (CIF) invites governments (National/State/Local), project promoters and developers working on public infrastructure projects, UN Regional officers and key CIF focal points to submit investable urban development projects to join the CIF pipeline. Selected projects will be showcased at the 11th Session of the World Urban Forum (WUF11) in 2022, and will actively participate in all 3 pillars of CIF in the following ways: •
• •
Projects will be showcased on the Cities Investment Portal (CI Portal), which allows city officials to reach out to a global audience of investors and access a community of stakeholders at the ideation stage. Projects will work with the Cities Investment Advisory Platform (CIAP), an initiative providing advisory services on upstream project preparation, bankability, and SDG-impact. Projects will access the Cities Investment Vehicles (CI Vehicles), who are brokers or funds that provide diverse and blended sources of capital to enable cities to begin implementing their projects
READ MORE
page 17
LARRY O’FARRELL Professor Emeritus, Queen’s University. Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Network for Arts and Learning
ARTS FOR SDGS WEBINAR ON ART IMPACT FOR HEALTH TO UNDERSTAND THE UNIVERSAL IMPACT OF ARTS AND HOW ARTS AND HEALTH WORK TOGETHER WHIS streamed an international webinar to discuss the opportunities for the Arts to support the Sustainable Development Goals. Hosted by Isabelle Wachsmuth, the panel looked at the advancement of research on the impact of art for health and explored examples from across the world which showed that art-based interventions and practices improved the health and wellbeing of participants and created dialogue in ways people can speak to each other.
“The Evidence is clear that participation in the arts is a powerful way to initiate physical and emotional healing. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to chip away at our sense of personal and community wellbeing, we increasingly rely on the arts to counteract ongoing anxiety as well as the adverse effects of isolation. This is especially true for children and youth who have suffered deterioration in several mental health domains including depression, anxiety, irritability, and attention span. While educational systems are justly concerned to make up for lost time in all subjects, the arts must be accorded priority status in schools and community programs to ensure that a return to in-class learning does not exacerbate any of the ill effects of the pandemic. The arts are essential to the recovery process.”
page 18
DEBS TEALE
CLAUDIO ANJOS
Lead Peer Support Development Coordinator, South West Yorkshire NHS
President of Fundação Iochpe
“Social prescribing and creativity not only saved my life it transformed it beyond any recognition of what it had been previously. Coming from being heavily medicated, bedbound most of the time, no hope of ever working again and with my children as my carers, “a simple art class” has got me free from all medication, free from mental health services and working in the NHS. Creativity is universal it has no boundaries, no restrictions, no religion, no gender, no identity but it helps people find their identity, their hope, their freedom but most of all their lives.“
“The Art at School Institute has been delivering Continuous Professional Development Courses for Arts’ Teachers in Brazil from public schools for the past 32 years. In 2020, due to the pandemics, we broke all our records by impacting over 58,000 Arts’ Teachers from all over the country. We more than doubled our reach in a very short period of time, which represents the urgent need to provide top notch training for Arts’ Teachers in the country. Now we need to understand the impact of these arts’ classes on the mental health of the students.”
page 19
“It is incredible to be recognised by FFL as one of the leading solutions in active ageing from over 600 entrants around the world. It highlights the dedication and multidisciplinary talents of the entire Good Boost team and our partners, through creating solutions that solve problems and barriers that older adults face in being more active, more often.” – Ben Wilkins, CEO of Good Boost
GOOD BOOST FIT FOR LIFE’S 2021 AWARD WINNERS In 2020, the number of people aged 60 or over will surpass one billion. By 2045, this number is expected to reach one in every five people. In order to meet the needs of this ageing population, many industries will increasingly embrace the concept of ‘active ageing’, focusing on services that can assist older adults in developing and accessing the opportunities offered by a greater life expectancy. The Fit for Life Foundation (FFL) translates into action the philosophy of active ageing, aiming to promote active lifestyles, fitness and independent mobility among middle-aged and older people worldwide, and supports innovative, high-impact projects through its annual Fit for Life Awards.
These awards provide multi-year support and international visibility to innovative, impactful projects in rapidly ageing communities. FFL awards annual grants of EUR 100,000 each to three non-profit organisations or social enterprises that are pioneering projects to promote life-long fitness and health around the world. The grants are distributed over three years to allow for tracking and monitoring of the project’s performance and impact. This multi-year support empowers Laureates, enabling them to steadily scale up their programmes, while growing public awareness of the importance of healthy ageing. FFL’s founder, Jack Lowe, is turning 80 this year, and still striving hard to spark change and challenge stereotypes. The FFL Laureates are announced at an annual awards event in Geneva, Switzerland, in the presence of their ambassadors, donors and partner organisations.
page 20
“Exercise has always been a big part of my life. And as I entered my 70s, I realised how important exercise was to continue to do the things I love: riding my bike, travelling, and spending quality time with friends and family. Physical activity is essential to our long-term health. Getting fit and staying physically active are the best investments you can make for a long and healthy life.” – Jack Lowe, Champion of the Fit for Life Philosophy
The FFL team are pushing their mission to drive change: creating solutions for Active Ageing globally. It’s not just an award, but support for three years to scale three award winners for 2021. This year, one of those three winners is Good Boost: a social enterprise founded in 2018 specialising in therapeutic and rehabilitative exercise programmes that target musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions, such as arthritis and back pain. With a combination of clinical knowledge and advanced digital technologies, they have pioneered exercises that can be used on land and in water, for treatment, management and prevention of MSK conditions. In fact, their solutions offer to sustain MSK wellbeing by “converting any space into a therapeutic place”. Since starting as a research project, it has been their goal to innovate cost-effective and accessible options for MSK community health services. Good Boost shares, “We want everyone to love looking after their musculoskeletal wellbeing by moving more, having fun and feeling better.” With that aim, Good Boost has partnered with health institutions, charities, and leisure providers to develop an app that assesses individual user needs, creating a personalised training routine suited to their specific requirements - all through the power of artificial intelligence. Participants are provided with special waterproof tablets where they can access the app and follow along with their personal set of exercises in training sessions. In a group setting, participants experience a boost to their motivation, as well as their mental and emotional health.
It’s shown that more than half of participants continue to attend the program beyond 24 weeks, and two-thirds of participants have reported a significant improvement in their level of activity after using Good Boost’s exercise plan. Moreover, 64% of participants reported a pain reduction of 56% after following the program at 0-24 weeks.
“We want everyone to love looking after their musculoskeletal wellbeing by moving more, having fun, and feeling better.” – Good Boost
With projects like Good Boost, one can see how addressing opportunities created by an ageing population can defy negative stereotypes about older adults and highlights just how beneficial it is to nourish the demands of those who want to live longer and in good health. FFL’s Awards promote the world-changing impact of such projects, with the hopes of having others get involved in their ethos and mission.
INTRODUCING INFORMATION FOR WELLBEING page 21
AN INITIATIVE OF THE WORLD HEALTH INNOVATION SUMMIT. AUTHOR: DAVID DICKINSON – PART OF WHIS Activity for Health (Social Prescribing). Doctors are increasingly encouraged to prescribe activity, often as an alternative to drugs, in a process commonly known as social prescribing. This process is backed up by community champions whose role it is to match people with local opportunities such as walking groups, choirs and gardening, etc., monitoring their engagement and feeding it back to the healthcare professionals. The initial success of this movement, fronted by the Global Social Prescribing Alliance, has been exhilarating. Particularly gratifying has been the way in which student doctors have taken this healthcare strategy to heart. Activity prescribing is now a driving force alongside medical prescribing, further engaging and involving patients in their own health and wellbeing.
Information for Wellbeing. To provide additional stability for the people’s healthcare, this paper introduces a third leg to the stool - Information for Wellbeing. There is ample research to suggest that people cope with illness more effectively if they are properly informed and emotionally prepared. This has a bearing on hospital bed occupancy, the prescription of pain relief drugs and, perhaps topically, the management of epidemics and the aftermath. That preparation requires a new approach to information, so that each person can gain relevant, timely, focused messages and make meaning from them in the context of their own lives.
page 22
Yet for people living in poverty, without enough money, poor food, inadequate relationships, accommodation, environment etc., their health can often be of secondary concern. To mitigate this with information, it needs to be perceived as personally relevant, in order to engage, enable and support everyone in mapping their lives. The opportunity is to encourage people to orientate and navigate their responses to the situations in which they find themselves. Their information also needs to be integrated into the way they plan their day-to-day activities and interactions. Current models of information handling, websites, social media platforms etc., are inadequate for the task, exacerbated by the fact that those in most need are typically the least information-enabled and dealing with the most complex life-situations.
READ MORE
page 23
Together, we can achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.
Through this platform, we provide inspiring content that is dedicated to the innovative advances across the globe, designed to inspire and share knowledge with everyone.
www.whis.world Twitter
contact@whisinspire.com
