AHEAD webinar: participatory consensus building to tackle medical deserts

How can participatory consensus building contribute to effective collaboration on policy options to tackle medical deserts? During our webinar on January 27th, the partners of the Action for Health and Equity: Addressing medical Deserts (AHEAD), including Wemos, shared their experience with applying AHEAD’s participatory consensus building methodology in workshop sessions with stakeholders in areas affected by medical desertification in Italy, Moldova, the Netherlands, Romania and Serbia. The recording of the webinar is now available on YouTube.

It is known from literature that successful implementation of health workforce policies requires strong inter-sectoral governance and consensus building among the different stakeholders involved. The AHEAD partners therefore held sessions with local and national level stakeholders in their countries, applying the methodology to increase the chances of identifying locally owned and sustainable policy solutions to counteract medical deserts and related health workforce challenges. During the webinar, the panelists (consisting of representatives from the AHEAD country teams) shared their lessons learned and experiences with the methodology.

Moderator:

• Abdul Azad – post-doctoral lecturer and researcher (VU Athena Institute, Netherlands)

Presenter:

• Jessica Coetzer – PhD candidate in Inclusive Healthcare (VU Athena Institute, Netherlands)

Panelists:

• Corinne Hinlopen – Project officer for AHEAD (Wemos, Netherlands)
• Bianca Ferraiolo – Head of the Representative Office to the EU (Cittadinanzattiva, Italy)
• Iulia Visinescu – Research assistant (Center for Health Policies and Services, Romania)
• Sergiu Otgon – Human resources for health expert (National Public Health Agency, Republic of Moldova)
• Stefan Mandic-Rajcevic – Data research analyst and medical doctor (University of Belgrade, Serbia)

With the AHEAD project, we aim to reduce health inequalities by addressing the challenge of medical deserts and medical desertification in Europe. The team behind the project consists of the Center for Health Policies and Services (Romania), Cittadinanza Attiva (Italy), Media Education Centre (Serbia), National School for Public Health Management (Moldova), Wemos (lead partner organisation – Netherlands), and VU Athena Institute (Netherlands). Visit the AHEAD website for more information: www.ahead.health.