Towards a bio-social understanding of health

In the subsequent panel discussion, Robert Böhm, Co-Director of the research network, explained how such a holistic approach can be implemented. In the upcoming Health Survey, which examines the health of employees at the University of Vienna, the research network will not only ask about medical, but also social and structural aspects. 

In the third part of the survey, participants can contribute their ideas and suggestions for improvement. "We want to make this participatory", sagte Böhm. "We are asking for input right at the beginning, in the survey, and are continuing this afterwards with focus groups to develop new interventions to increase the health of staff members."

Using the opioid epidemic in the USA as an example, Co-Director Janina Kehr then outlined the differences between the US and Austrian health care systems. Medicines may not be marketed directly to consumers in this country, and the authorities responsible for the approval of medicines also play an important role. 

An analysis of drug and drug use on the basis of ethnic characteristics or skin colour, on the other hand, is hardly possible in Austria, unlike in the USA, Kehr said: "There is no ethnical or racial census, so we cannot answer questions about racialised practises and consumptions."  

She considers an opioid epidemic comparable to the USA unlikely in Austria: "We have safeguards, the wellfare state and a functioning healthcare system that would make an epidemic of this scale - for now - hopefully not imaginable."

Hansen then appealed to advocate for this strong European-style welfare state health system and for independent university health research.  She urgently warned against privatisation as in the USA, where health is subordinated to the financial interests of companies and research questions are often determined by financiers from the private sector.  

The U.S. health care system spends the most money per capita on health services, making it the worst performer of any developed country. What gives her hope in view of this fact? Hansen recalled the successful cooperation between activists and medical professionals during the AIDS crisis. 

Currently, she is observing more and more self-organisation and activism at all levels, from the local community to the state, in response to the policies of the Trump administration, which she finds very encouraging. "The experiences in the USA are a warning to us," Janina Kehr replied, "but they are also an indication for us of what we have to do."