In order to better anticipate future opportunities and threats, foresight and other forward-looking activities are often used to initiate discussions regarding future developments in policy circles. While these activities are quite effective at clarifying issues that are currently evolving, they are less effective in identifying emerging issues that are not yet on the policy radar. Events that seem to occur suddenly may actually have been preceded by subtle warning signals which were not detected through established mechanisms.
The SESTI project (Scanning for Emerging Science and Technology Issues) has developed a mechanism which can be used to identify weak signals and emerging issues in a systematic, efficient and effective way. It is also pursuing the application and implementation of such techniques by linking them in a meaningful way to existing policy processes.
This document reports the findings of the workshop on emerging issues and weak signals in Health, which was held in Brussels on the 30th of November, 2010 as part of the SESTI project activities. The workshop was attended by an international panel of thematic experts, as well as national and EU-level policy-makers.
Identified Weak Signals and Emerging Issues
The scanning process developed by the SESTI project team led to the identification of a number of emerging issues, of which the following five were selected for discussion at the thematic workshop and which might require special attention on the part of policymakers:
- Diversification in medicine.
- Happy aging? Mental health in an ageing society.
- Obesity: the global epidemic marches on.
- Is prevention better than cure? Re-prioritising health research.
- Personalised treatment.
