Meri Koivusalo

Tampere University, Finland · Faculty of Social Sciences

Social protection is a human right and a key intervention in protecting against poverty and enabling sustainable growth. As new social protection instruments are designed for new challenges, such as external shocks (climate events, natural disasters, pandemics, wars/conflicts, displacement), there is a need to understand programmes better, and to c...

Background Obligations arising from trade and investment agreements can affect how governments can regulate and organise health systems. The European Union has made explicit statements of safeguarding policy space for health systems. We assessed to what extent health systems were safeguarded in trade negotiations using the European Union (EU) negot...

This chapter offers an in-depth look at health politics and the health system in Finland, which combines universal tax-financed health services provided by municipalities, national health insurance coverage for private provision, and an occupational healthcare system for those in employment. The chapter traces the development of the Finnish healthc...

Introduction The initial International Conference on Population and Development in 1994 contains the first reference to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights (SRHR). It has been considered agreed language on SRHR in future United Nations (UN) documents. However, opposition to SRHR in global forums has increased, including in conjun...

Addressing global health is one of the largest challenges facing humanity in the 21st century, however, this task is becoming even more formidable with the accelerated destruction of the planet. Building on the success of the previous edition, the book outlines how progress towards improving global health relies on understanding its core social, ec...

The baby box is a social innovation: a maternity package with baby clothes and other items for expectant mothers to promote the wellbeing of baby and family. The contents of this report are based on a mapping of 91 baby box programmes and an in-depth study of 29 programmes across different world regions in high-, middle- and low-income countries. T...

Issue Negotiation of trade agreements has become a key part of current international policy environment with the consequence of increasing concerns over impacts on public health, health protection and policy space for health. Trade agreements represent 'meta-regulation' where key impacts will be on how governments can regulate with different implic...

Objectives : The objective of this study was to describe and analyze the impact of the coronavirus disease COVID-19 on health policy, social- and health system, and economic and financing system to prevent, treat, contain and monitor the virus in Finland. Methods : This study provides early outcomes of health policy measures, social- and health sy...

This analysis of the Finnish health system reviews developments in its organization and governance, financing, provision of services, health reforms and health system performance. Finland is a welfare state witha high standard of social and living conditions and a low poverty rate. Its health system has a highly decentralized administration, multip...

This is for the STN project application

The analysis of the implications of trade and investment agreements usually follows either economic policy modelling or the analysis of specific arbitration cases. These two approaches are often less helpful from the perspective of more systemic impacts or other policy aims as the potential concerns tend to be accounted for on the basis of a single...

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent global policy goals in contrast to Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), which had developmental focus. This is the global potential of SDGs for global health policy. However, the large number of goals bear the risk of prioritisation between different goals and broad global frameworks and specific target...

European Union trade policies have been evolving towards more emphasis on bilateral agreements and addressing non-tariff barriers to trade with an increasing number of trade negotiations with focus on services, government procurement and investment. Maintaining national policy space is a challenge for governments due to negotiation focus, practices...

New trade agreements affect how governments can regulate for health both within health systems and in addressing health protection, promotion and social determinants of health in other policies. It is essential that those responsible for health understand the impacts of these trade negotiations and agreements on policy space for health at a nationa...

The ambitious and comprehensive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement (TTIP/TAFTA) agreement between the European Union and United States is now being negotiated and may have far-reaching consequences for health services. The agreement extends to government procurement, investment, and further regulatory cooperation. In this arti...

The Globalism and Social Policy Program (GASPP) was a joint academic and advisory program between the National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health in Finland and Sheffield University in the United Kingdom. GASPP raised issues and themes which have only later become more central to academic discussion in the field of global social...

Patient and public involvement has been at the heart of UK health policy for more than two decades. This commitment to putting patients at the heart of the British National Health Service (NHS) has become a central principle helping to ensure equity, patient safety and effectiveness in the health system. The recent Health and Social Care Act 2012 i...

On 10-14 June, the World Health Organization (WHO) and Finland’s Ministry of Social Affairs and Health will host the 8th Global Conference on Health Promotion in Helsinki, Finland. The Global Conference will highlight Health in All Policies (HiAP), an approach that has evolved over the past quarter century – arising out of a focus on primary health...

If medicines are obtained by a low-income population largely through market exchange, then consumer rights become a key aspect of the right to health, and hence a key aspect of tackling severe injustice and inequality. In Tanzania and India, where market-based access to medicines is dominant, regulation of retail sales is weak. Impoverished consume...

Nongovernmental public action has been effective in influencing global agenda-setting in health and pharmaceutical policies, yet its record in influencing solutions to the problems identified has been notably more limited. While trade policies have been particularly resistant to change, more substantial changes are observable in global health polic...

The European Union (EU) and Canada are currently negotiating a new Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) (European Commission 2011). In early 2010, the negotiating text was leaked and posted to the Trade Justice Network website, raising a variety of red flags for Europe-an member states. The draft agreement, described as more far-reachi...

Concerns about health are not new aspects of trade policies, but have long been part of trade negotiations. It is also known that failures in public health policies can substantially and adversely affect trade. The economic costs of global epidemics have been rising sharply, but more important is the point that prevention of epidemics requires not...

In this chapter we track emerging issues in public participation and involvement in European policymaking. We focus on the politics, legitimacy and accountability of different actors as well as exploring how European participation processes relate to globalization in general and global and regional governance in particular. Health policies tend to...

In order to achieve more ethical global health outcomes, health policies must be driven by health priorities and should take into account broader health policy requirements, including the needs of specific national health systems. It is thus important to recognize that the division of interests in key policy areas are not necessarily between the pr...

Health in All Policies (HiAP) was formally legitimated as a European Union (EU) approach in 2006. It resulted from more long-term efforts to enhance action on considering health and health policy implications of other policies, as well as recognition that European-level policies affect health systems and scope for health-related regulation at natio...

Although the last two decades have seen the healthcare systems of most developed countries face pressure for major reform, the impact of this reform on the relationship between empowerment, consumerism and citizen's rights has received limited research attention. Globalisation, Markets and Healthcare Policy sets out to redress this imbalance. This...

Assessment of: The World Health Report 2007: A Safer Future: Global Public Health Security in the 21st Century. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2007. 72 pp.

The analysis of the impact of economic globalisation on health depends on how it is defined and should consider how it shapes both health and health policies. I first discuss the ways in which economic globalisation can and has been defined and then why it is important to analyse its impact both in terms of health and health policies. I then explor...

The role of the European Union in health policies is changing. The European social model is under threat due to shifts in E.U. policies on liberalization of service provision, limited public budgets, a focus on the health sector as a productive sector in the context of broader European policies and the Lisbon strategy, and changes in the context of...

There are greater tensions than ever before between promoting trade and protecting health. Human health could lose out to trade liberalization unless the health community fights its case.

It is the argument of this book that health systems exist to fulfil purposes, including protecting and improving health and the provision of professional, ethical, accountable and accessible health care for all. Therefore policies that influence the nature and extent of health care commercialization should be designed to further those purposes. To...

Based on original research and analysis by a group of health policy experts and economists from across the world, this book analyzes the causes and consequences of the expanding global and local commercialization of health care. It argues for the necessity and possibility of effective policy responses to develop good quality, universally inclusive...

The World Health Report 2000 on health systems has raised concerns about its political biases, its methods and indicators, and its lack of reliable data. Tracing the origins of the Report, this article argues that it counteracts many of the concerns that gave rise to preparation of the Report in the first place. The mutually agreed-upon value-base,...

Agreements negotiated at the World Trade Organization already have important implications for health and health policy. They impact on the ability of governments to regulate trade in the interests of health; on national and international governance and public health standards; and on the future of the precautionary principle. Agreements on trade-re...

The International Poverty and Health Network (IPHN) was created in December 1997 following a series of conferences organized by the World Health Organization, with the aim of integrating health into plans to eradicate poverty. Around 1.3 billion people live on less than US$1 per day. Of the 4.4 billion people in developing countries nearly 60% lack...

The international population policy agenda has traditionally been dominated by demographically driven population control policies. However, in the population policy development that preceded the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, people's reproductive needs and rights received more emphasis. The aim of this study was to...

In Finland the provision of health services is decentralised and the responsibility of municipalities. In practice, central government has traditionally supported these responsibilities through specially allocated funding. In the 1990s central government changed to block grants and municipalities have become more independent in providing services....

The detection of mutagenic and carcinogenic chlorination by-products in chlorinated drinking water has raised concern in many countries over the potential health effects of long-term exposure to these products. The relation between estimated exposure to historical drinking water mutagenicity and cancer was studied in Finland by using a population-b...

Although health care reforms have been implemented in both developed and developing countries since the 1980s, there has been little discussion of the historical, social and political contexts in which such reforms have taken place. Health care reforms in developing countries, for instance, have been an integral component of structural adjustment p...

Although health care reforms have been implemented in both developed and developing countries since the 1980s, there has been little discussion of the historical, social and political contexts in which such reforms have taken place. Health care reforms in developing countries, for instance, have been an integral component of structural adjustment p...

This review discusses the relation between by-products of drinking water chlorination and cancer in the light of present toxicological and epidemiologic evidence. During the chlorination of drinking water, a complex mixture of by-products forms from chlorine and the organic and inorganic compounds present in raw water. The quality and quantity of s...

Chlorination of water rich in organic material is known to produce a complex mixture of organochlorine compounds, including mutagenic and carcinogenic substances. A historical cohort study of 621,431 persons living in 56 towns in Finland was conducted in order to assess the relation between historical exposure to drinking water mutagenicity and can...

The heavy industry on the Murmansk region in Russia is releasing huge amounts of waste into the air, including heavy metals and sulphur compounds. To investigate the temporal trend in exposure to certain heavy metals among the inhabitants of north-eastern Finland, a pilot study was carried out involving serum and hair samples from group of 11 perso...

The acid, mutagenic compounds present in chlorinated drinking water have caused concern about the potential cancer risk of drinking-water mutagenicity. In this study, past exposure to drinking water mutagenicity was assessed for the years 1955 and 1970 in 56 Finnish municipalities, using the historical information on water quality and treatment. Ca...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between exposure to mutagenic drinking water and cancers of the gastrointestinal and urinary tract. Past exposure to drinking water mutagenicity was assessed in 56 Finnish municipalities for the years 1955 and 1970. The cases of bladder, kidney, stomach, colon, and rectum cancers were de...

The assessment of past exposure is a prerequisite to all epidemiological studies on drinking water and cancer. In this study the past exposure assessment of drinking water carcinogenicity was done in terms of the drinking water mutagenicity estimated from historical water parameters and compared with the methods used previously in past exposure ass...

Throughout history and prehistory trade and economic growth have always entailed serious population health challenges. The post-war orthodoxies of demographic and epidemiological transition theory and the Washington consensus have each encouraged the view that industrialization necessarily changes all this and that modern forms of rapid economic gr...

Traffic and health (In Finnish) In: Handbook of Environmental Health

The task of moving health higher up the European agenda is grounded in the institutional history of the European Union (EU) and health is highly valued by citizens of Member States. Health issues are also of increasing importance in the context of the EU. European policies influence not only the health of European citizens through impacts on determ...

Summary This policy brief assesses and analyses the role and relevance of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the trade agreements it hosts from a health policy point of view paying particular attention to matters of importance for developing countries. It first discusses trade matters in a general framework, then in terms of trade flows and the...

Summary This policy brief articulates three challenges for social integration policies from the perspective of social policy and with a focus on global social policy. We emphasise that social integration needs to be seen in the context of an entire society. The first challenge we identify is how to ensure universal rather than targeted provision of...