Autonomous Community of Andalusia designs new regional health plan

The Autonomous Community of Andalusia, Spain, has recently launched its 4th health plan, "IV Andalusian Health Plan" (IV AHP). The document aims to protect and improve the health status of the Andalusian population by addressing the determinants and living conditions that affect them, involving all policies in the process. Accordingly, this IV AHP moves from a sectoral set of health policies towards a multisectoral approach, placing the main health policy purposes at the core of the regional government’s commitments. The 5 guiding principles of the IV AHP are: health in all policies, citizen participation, local action, health impact assessment and gender equity.

After a participative process involving citizen representatives, health professionals and academia, among others, the IV AHP focuses on 6 commitments agreed by all departments of the Andalusian Government:

1. to increase citizens’ life expectancy;
2. to protect and promote people’s health from the effects of climate change, globalization and emerging risks affecting environmental factors and food safety;
3. to generate and develop health assets and make them available to the Andalusian society;
4. to reduce social inequalities in health;
5. to provide citizens with a people-centred Andalusian Public Health System with the leadership of health professionals; and
6. to promote knowledge management and technology introduction with sustainability criteria in order to improve the population’s health.

Implementing the IV AHP

The IV AHP will be implemented at regional, provincial and local levels using 2 main procedures. First, a roadmap for promoting health in all policies at regional level will be designed. Every 2 years, a report on the progress of the IV AHP will be produced in order to monitor its commitments. Second, there will be a separate roadmap for implementation at provincial and local levels. The final goal of the latter is to develop a provincial health plan.