Public Health Programme

What is the EU Health Programme?

The Health Programme is the European Commission’s main instrument for implementing the EU health strategy. The programme aims, through projects and other actions it funds, to improve the level of physical and mental health and well-being of EU citizens and reduce health inequalities throughout the Community. In particular, the programme supports health-promoting and preventive actions that address the major health determinants.

The Health Programme is implemented in the form of annual work plans, which the European Commission adopts. These set out the priorities, actions to be undertaken and allocation of resources for a specific year.

Health is a competence of Member States and therefore Community actions taken under the Health Programme only complement Member States' national health policies on, for example, cross-border health threats, such as influenza.

Health Programme 2008-2013 – Together for Health

Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the second programme of Community action in the field of health (2008-13) was published on 20 November 2007. The second programme entered into force on 1 January 2008. See the text of the decision here.

Programme objectives

The newly adopted programme aligns future health action with the overall EU objectives of prosperity, solidarity and security and aims to further exploit synergies with other policies. The programme objectives are:

• to improve citizens' health security and safety;
• to promote health to improve prosperity and solidarity, and;
• to generate and disseminate health knowledge.

The budget proposed for the Programme is € 321.5 million for 2008-2013.

Financing mechanisms

To ensure appropriate participation in the Programme by organisations, which promote a health agenda in line with the Programme objectives, a wider variety of financing mechanisms are offered. These include:

• cofinancing of projects intended to achieve a Programme objective;
• cofinancing of the operating costs of a non-governmental organisation or a specialised network;
• grants for conferences
• joint actions with public bodies of one or more Member States and the Community;
• tenders to achieve a Programme objective;
• joint actions with other Community programmes, which will generate coherence between this instrument and other Community programmes.

More on Public Health Programme 2008-2013

Public Health Programme 2003-2008

The past programme for 2003-2008 is the first integrated programme of Community action in the field of public health. It stopped on 31 December 2007 and was replaced by the second Health Programme. The 2003-2008 Programme had a budget of €353.77 million to work towards its three general objectives:

• to establish a sustainable EU-level health monitoring system;
• to develop rapid reaction capacities to health threats, and;
• to tackle major health determinants, in particular lifestyle related factors.

The previous programme financed over 300 projects and other actions.

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