“WORKING TOWARDS WELLNESS” INITIATIVE HOLDS CHRONIC DISEASE PREVENTION WORKSHOP IN CHINA

The World Economic Forum and the World Health Organization held a two-day meeting to advance their Working Towards Wellness initiative, which is designed to encourage corporate leaders to enlist in the fight against cardiovascular disease and other chronic diseases through employee wellness. The meeting was held 5-6 September 2007 in Dalian, China.

As the lead health-related nongovernmental organization in the multi-stakeholder effort, with prominent places on both the initiative’s steering and advisory boards, the World Heart Federation was particularly active at the meeting.

On the first day, Chief Executive Officer Janet Voûte moderated a day-long workshop at which corporate leaders, health experts, scholars and World Economic Forum staff members reviewed existing solutions and brainstormed for new ones. PepsiCo’s Director of Global Health Policy Derek Yach co-chaired the workshop.

The second day featured a half-day working session to reflect on and digest the ideas raised on the previous day, followed by a working lunch and an afternoon press conference. Ms Voûte participated in a press conference with Derek Yach; United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Julie Louise Gerberding; European Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou; Qiagen NV Chief Executive Officer Peer M. Schatz; and World Economic Forum Director of Consumer Industries Sarita Nayyar.

Many of the ideas that were discussed during the two days will be contained in a report that the World Economic Forum and the World Health Organization plan to release at the next annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in January 2008 in Davos, Switzerland.

Discussion centred on four expert papers covering the following topics:

• The workplace as a suitable setting for the prevention of chronic diseases.
• The economic benefits and cost-effectiveness of preventing chronic diseases in the workplace.
• The monitoring and evaluation of chronic disease prevention programmes in the workplace.
• The role of different stakeholders in developing and implementing chronic disease prevention programmes in the workplace.

Initiative is about “stimulating action”

“Working Towards Wellness is about stimulating action by corporations to contain the chronic diseases, which are mankind’s biggest killers, accounting for 60% of all deaths,” Ms Voûte said. “The initiative recognizes that corporations have a vital and relevant role in improving the health of their employees, and that enlightened self-interest can be one of the principal motivations for taking a determined stand.”

“Everyone has a role to play in the prevention and control of chronic diseases,” said World Health Organization Assistant Director General Catherine le Galès-Camus. “I am pleased to see that the commercial sector is examining chronic disease prevention through workplace initiatives.”

World Economic Forum Managing Director Richard Samans called the initiative “a key opportunity for stakeholders to come together to create comprehensive and tangible solutions to address chronic disease prevention globally.”

Among the World Heart Federation members in attendance were Pan-African Society of Cardiology President Albert Amoah, Heartfile President and Founder Sania Nishtar, Barry Franklin of the American Heart Association, and Dong Zhao, deputy director of the Beijing Institute of Heart, Lung and Blood Vessel Diseases, with whom the World Heart Federation is collaborating on an epidemiological study in China.

To learn more about the Working Towards Wellness Initiative visit the World Economic Forum’s web site.

See also the World Heart Federation’s web site.