Ilona Kickbusch

Ilona Kickbusch (born 27 August 1948 in Munich, Germany) is recognized throughout the world for her contribution to health promotion and global health.[1] She is currently adjunct professor at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva.[2]

Career Overview

Ilona Kickbusch graduated from the University of Konstanz, Germany, with a PhD in Political Science (1981). She contributed to the first academic studies in Germany on consumer-centered health care, the self-help and the women's health movement. After joining the World Health Organization (1981–1998) she was appointed to lead the Global Health Promotion Programme, followed by senior positions at the regional and global level of the organisation. She then joined Yale University (1998–2004) to head the new Global Health Program at the Yale School of Public Health. On returning to Europe, she took up senior positions as chairperson of the World Demographic & Ageing Forum, St Gallen, (2005),[3] director of the Global Health Programme[4] (2008) at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, and chair of Global Health Europe[5] (2009). In Switzerland, she serves on the executive board of the Careum Foundation [6] (2009). She teaches regularly at several academic institutions including the University of St. Gallen (HSG), Switzerland.

A complete summary of career highlights can be found here

Policy and research innovations

Ilona Kickbusch advises organisations, government agencies and the private sector on policies and strategies to promote health at the national, European and international level. She has published widely and is a member of several advisory boards in both the academic and health policy arenas. She has received many awards while contributing to innovations in health throughout her career. She is a true public health leader with a deep commitment to global responsibility, the empowerment of people and Health in All Policies[7] (HiAP). She can be regarded as a key driver of many important public health developments. Some highlights follow below.

Health Promotion - Health Society

She has had a distinguished career with the World Health Organization, at both the regional and global level. She was responsible for the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion in 1986, a seminal document in public health, as well as for the subsequent global conferences in health promotion. She was also involved in the formulation of the Bangkok Charter for Health Promotion in a Globalized World in 2005, and served on the advisory group for the World Conference on Social Determinants of Health 2011. She was the founding editor of the journal Health Promotion International (Oxford University Press) and serves as the chair of the editorial board. She has always been active both in developing implementation strategies (for example, the drafting of the Swiss health promotion and disease prevention law), as well as in strengthening the theoretical basis of health promotion. Concerning the latter, she has contributed to the debate by developing the concept of the 'health society' and exploring the links between health and modernity and innovative approaches to governance for health at the national and global level. She was recently lead author of white papers on 'The challenge of addiction' and 'The food system: a prism of present and future challenges for health promotion and sustainable development', and is engaged in a policy glossary on 'Learning for well-being'.

Health in All Policies - Governance for health - Policy innovations for health

In 2007, she was appointed Adelaide Thinker in Residence[8] for the subject area 'Healthy societies' at the invitation of the South Australian Premier. During this residency, she developed a special 'health lens' approach to Health in All Policies, which has been implemented in South Australia for several years now. She has published and advised widely on HiAP approaches and is considered one of the global leaders in this field. She continues to be involved in a range of hands-on projects regarding Health in All Policies. She has conducted a study for the WHO Regional Office for Europe on 'Governance for health in the 21st century', which is one of the key studies informing the new European policy for health, Health 2020. She is involved in the planning for the 2013 Global Conference on Health Promotion, which will focus on Health in All Policies, and in a range of advisory bodies for the study of the social determinants of health.

The settings approach - Demography and gender

She developed the settings approach to health promotion and initiated programmes such as Healthy Cities, health-promoting schools, healthy workplaces, health-promoting hospitals and health in prisons. Many of these networks are now global and have proved to be a highly sustainable approach to public health action. She also initiated the Health Behavior in School-aged Children study, which has become a global gold standard for measuring child and youth health. At the WHO headquarters she initiated the Healthy Ageing programme and continues to be active in this field as chair of the multidisciplinary World Demographic & Ageing Forum, St Gallen. She has always been active in the field of women's health and empowerment, and initiated the first comparative WHO study of women's health in Europe, Women's Health Counts.

Health Literacy

She has been a leader in developing the concept of health literacy and seeking to strengthen it through research and programmes. As a result of her initiative, the EU European Health Literacy Survey was created. It presented its results in 2011. She has been an advocate for citizen participation in health and has been instrumental in creating the new European Network On Patient Empowerment (ENOPE). The South Australian and Swiss health literacy alliances were created and based on her proposals. She is currently engaged in writing a textbook on health literacy in German, as well as a flagship publication for WHO.

Global Health Governance

During her time at Yale University she was head of the global health division, one of the first global health programmes and a school of public health. She contributed significantly to shaping the field of global health, particularly with the analysis of global health governance, and headed a major Fulbright Program entitled Health in a Borderless World. Today, she is considered one of the leaders in thinking on global health governance and has made significant suggestions with regard to multi-stakeholder involvement at WHO and partnership-based approaches to global health governance, including the proposal for a Committee C at the World Health Assembly. She provided significant input into EU policy on global health, as well as into the highly innovative Swiss health foreign policy. She also initiated Global Health Europe, a think tank to strengthen Europe's voice in global health.

Global Health Diplomacy

She has contributed significantly to the new field of global health diplomacy and has developed a unique approach to executive education in this field, which has gained significant support from the Rockefeller Foundation. Flagship courses are held regularly in Geneva, and have also been conducted in cooperation with local partners in China, Indonesia, Kenya, the USA and Canada. She has published widely on this subject – including a textbook on global health diplomacy – as well as on the wider issues of global health and foreign policy. She is a member of a number of policy networks in this field including the Global Health Diplomacy Network (GHD-NET). She is the editor (together with Tom Novotny) of the Global Health Diplomacy book series, published by World Scientific.

Awards and honors

Publications

Books

Selected chapters and articles

External links

Notes

  1. ↑ The Healthcare Forum Journal, vol. 37, no. 3, May/June 1994
  2. ↑ The Graduate Institute Website, Retrieved 2012-2-22: http://graduateinstitute.ch/globalhealth/page3990.html
  3. ↑ World Demographic & Ageing Forum Website, Retrieved 2012-2-22: http://www.wdaforum.org/index.php/en/about-us/board-of-trustees
  4. ↑ The Graduate Institute Website, Retrieved 2012-2-22: http://graduateinstitute.ch/globalhealth
  5. ↑ Global Health Europe Website, Retrieved 2012-2-22: http://www.globalhealtheurope.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=59&Itemid=97
  6. ↑ Careum Foundation Website, Retrieved 2012-2-22: http://www.careum-congress.ch/stiftung_en.php
  7. ↑ Implementing Health in All Policies: Adelaide 2010, Department of Health, Government of South Australia, Edited by Prof. Ilona Kickbusch and Dr. Kevin Buckett: 2010.
  8. ↑ Adelaide Thinkers in Residence Website, Retrieved 2012-2-22: http://www.thinkers.sa.gov.au/thinkers/kickbusch/who.aspx
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