EPHA is a leading NGO advocating for better health for everyone living in Europe. Our mission is to bring together the public health community to provide thought leadership and facilitate change; to build public health capacity to deliver equitable solutions to European public health challenges, to improve health and reduce health inequalities. Our key role is to promote health in the European Union at the highest levels of policy making across the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council.

80 million people still live in poverty in the EU, and poor living conditions, low income, poor employment conditions and unhealthy diets due to being unable to afford to buy healthy food are all key determinants of health. In addition, many of the key determinants of health lie outside of the control of individual citizens, such as how healthcare systems are managed, how food production in the EU is organized and how trade regulations enable or discourage healthy food choices and how pharmaceutical policies and the cost of medicines are regulated, for example.

EPHA's proposal for an operating grant under a Framework Partnership Agreement covers core operating costs for actions that contribute to the four objectives of the Third Health Programme. EPHA's workplan covers 4 strategic aims: improve overall population health and healthy life years, strengthen European health systems for better patient outcomes and reduced inequalities, and support institutional and policy frameworks that promote health and to strengthen and increase effective public health.

Health in all Policies, prevention-promotion-protection, reducing health inequalities and solidarity are central tenets of EPHA's workplan and are reflected in our approaches to working inter alia on food systems, trade and EU governance. Decreasing health inequalities is a core value that we endeavor to mainstream in all activities. Actions in the 2015 workplan reflect the final year of EPHA’s current strategic plan, and this year will be crucial for setting the 2016 to 2020 strategy.
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ROUTE-HWF aims to reduce inequalities in access to healthcare among countries and regions in Europe by supporting EU Member States in designing and implementing their policies related to regional medical deserts. It will do so by: (1) providing a definition and taxonomy of the concept of medical deserts, (2) developing guidelines on how EU Member States can monitor and measure medical deserts (as defined and categorized in the developed taxonomy) at national and subnational levels, (3) providing in-depth insights on factors driving “desertification” and of HWF policy responses and approaches to medical deserts, (4) providing an optimal mix of HWF policy responses and approaches to medical deserts per category of the taxonomy on medical deserts, and (5) developing a roadmap which will support EU Member States in designing and implementing their health workforce policies, actions and initiatives related to medical deserts.

Divided over 3 horizontal WPs and 5 core WPs, the following methods will be used to achieve these aims: a literature study, a country survey among 33 European countries, a database search, five national workshops (NL, FI, ES, PL, HR) with 10 participants each, six in-depth case studies, and a 1,5 day consensus building workshop with 66 participants from 33 countries.

The elements of the ROUTE-HWF roadmap will be strongly rooted in practice and support public authorities and health professionals at national and subnational levels in (a) better understanding the characteristics of medical deserts in their country or region, (b) better monitoring and measuring medical deserts, including the effects of policy measures, and (c) improving the design and implementation of policies to move out of medical deserts in their country or region, by providing a rationale for a mix of policy measures, taking into account relevant contextual factors (including possible legal and other barriers).

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The expression of medical desert is commonly used in the public and mediatic field referring to several situations or areas where people have difficulties to access care (e.g. waiting time, doctor’s registration difficulties or long distances to hospital).The identification of such areas became a major issue and is exacerbated by the fact that the accessibility itself is complex to address due to its multidimensional nature (spatial, physical, temporal, financial, and cultural).The OASES proposal aims to represent a source of knowledge in European medical deserts, reinforcing the capacity of health authorities of EU Member States to reform their health systems and address all the important aspects to successfully tackle the challenges that the medical desert is posing, with specific regard to actions focusing on skill mix, task shifting, use of e-health and IT systems, recruitment and retention management and policies, in order to guarantee universal coverage also in rural and underserved areas. To achieve this, the proposal presents and supports the application of a stepwise methodology focused on a) definition of a measurement methodology and tool applicable in different contexts (minimal, intermediate, advanced dataset); b) implementation of the measurement methods and tools in selected pilot sites of 7 European countries; c) assessment, policy actions analysis and sustainability in each pilot site, d) impact evaluation in each pilot site and updating the measurement methods and tools according to the pilot results; e) scaling up of the methods and of the policy actions at EU level.
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The Project AHEAD will address the challenge of medical deserts and medical desertification in Europe in an effort to help reduce health inequalities. The Project’s objective is to provide support to policy makers in selected Member States and other eligible countries to define, design and implement evidence-based and context-specific reforms in the health workforce field that specifically aim to counteract and/or prevent medical deserts. The approach applied in this Project will build knowledge, encourage (digital) innovation in health service delivery to improve access and apply a participatory approach to public health policy making. The Project will be carried out in Romania, Serbia, Moldova, Italy and the Netherlands and will benefit health policy makers, patients’ organizations, health professionals’ organisations, affected communities and more. The countries were carefully selected to highlight different manifestations of medical deserts and to address interconnectedness as a result of health worker mobility. Activities include: desk research; participatory action research; multi-stakeholder consensus building dialogues; high-level policy dialogues at national and EU level. The dissemination of the Projects’ knowledge products and best practices is a cross-cutting activity, aiming to also inspire duty bearers outside the Project. The consortium will produce several deliverables: policy briefs; a set of contextualized and feasible policy solutions to address medical deserts in the countries; an improved definition and taxonomy of medical deserts; a medical deserts diagnostic monitoring tool; a prototype for a medical deserts visual mapping tool; a tested and replicable approach for participatory health policy making. Our ultimate impact at society and EU level is better access to health services, especially in underserved areas, and more equitable access to sufficient, skilled and motivated health workers, starting with the countries involved in the Project.
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