Seventh Futures Forum on unpopular decisions in public health

Public health decisions often create strong public resistance from the people who do not expect to benefit from them. Yet, making and launching unpopular decisions is everyday business for top-level policy-makers in public health. The Seventh Futures Forum of High-level Decision-makers therefore aimed to identify tools for making such decisions more acceptable and popular.

This Futures Forum based its discussions on practical cases from countries, encompassing the closure of hospital beds, the introduction of smoking bans in workplaces, measures to reduce harm from alcohol consumption, and user charges for health care, followed by an open exchange of experience and ideas.