Finland Must Do More to Protect the Health of Its Entire Population

Finland’s public-health policy has traditionally rested on two principles: promoting equal health across population groups and making health a concern across all areas of government. The article argues that both principles have moved into the background.

Health care accounts for only an estimated 10 to 20 percent of the factors determining population health. Social structures and lifestyles play a much larger role, making decisions in employment and economic policy, education and culture, environmental policy and finance important to public health as well.

The World Health Organization’s principles of “Health in All Policies” and “Health for All” call for action across government and for measures that favor the most disadvantaged groups. The article says these ideas once formed a cornerstone of Finnish health policy, including the Health 2015 program launched in 2001. A broad public-health advisory council that prepared and coordinated the program has not been appointed since 2023, and the principles appear less clearly in the national Health for You program for 2024 to 2027.

The article points to several worsening trends in Finland: rising loneliness, increasing obesity, deteriorating mental-health problems among children and young people, greater psychological strain among working-age adults and declining functional ability among older people. Health and welfare gaps have not narrowed.

It argues that decision-makers responsible for health policy should bring other sectors into coordinated action, rather than focusing mainly on the number of wellbeing services counties and their funding arrangements. Poverty is described as both a direct health risk and a background factor behind health inequalities. Some of its effects operate through smoking, alcohol and other substance use, obesity and limited physical activity, which damage health and can accumulate among population groups.