STAKES
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The changing context
The average welfare and life span of the resident population of
Finland is expected to develop positively. However, this bright
overall picture may disguise the negative developments underway
that are partly associated with the country's internal developments
and partly with global developments. With regard to people's living
conditions and also service provision and policy-making, the goals
and preconditions of "a good life" are affected by the
globalisation of economy, the marketisation of society, and
demographic changes.
Welfare and health
Welfare and health among the Finnish population will be affected by
a number of factors in the near future, including demographic
changes, increasing inequalities, work- and employment-related
developments, public health trends, and new technologies with their
opportunities and pressures. Demographic changes will involve both
an increasing number of older people and a declining child
population.
The deep economic recession in Finland in the 1990s increased
social exclusion and contributed to its becoming more persistent,
even intergenerational. Welfare and health are still unevenly
distributed between regions and population groups. As for
exclusion, specific areas of concern include psychosocial problems
among children and young people and the high number of the older
long-term unemployed. Mental disorders are among the most common
public health problems, and they will require even more attention
than previously. Moreover, social and health problems will increase
in the near future with the growth of alcohol consumption. New
public health threats include obesity, metabolic syndrome, adult
diabetes with related complications, and outbreaks of new global
infections. Despite these threats, trends in major national
diseases are expected to develop as positively as in the past few
decades.
The service and income transfer system needs to be constantly
assessed and adjusted in order to address changes in the age
structure, internal migration, and increasing immigration. In
particular, people's well-being and health is affected by the rapid
changes taking place in working life and working environments. In
order to be able to increase the attraction of work in ways that
take into account demographic changes, policy makers both need to
increase the possibilities for young people to start a family and
to promote older workers' coping at work.
The rapid changes in working life and working environments are also
felt in the social and health sector, where the increasingly high
employee retirement rates in the forthcoming years and high work
pressures will lead to a shortage of labour unless efforts are made
to ensure the availability of professional personnel. Technological
advancement also contributes to shaping activities in the social
and health sector. Advanced communication technologies facilitate
interaction between service systems and citizens. Health-care
technology offers new devices, methods of treatment and medicines,
all of which tend to increase health-care costs.
Changes in welfare policy
and the steering system
Changes in the age structure and other demographic changes
automatically increase social expenditure, thus imposing increasing
pressures on the public finances. This takes place through the
growth of pension expenditure and an increase in the need for
nursing and care. Finland has made attempts to lower the overall
tax rate while also being committed to coping with an increasing
pension expenditure. This may require a redefinition of the scope
and nature of public sector welfare responsibilities.
Models for organising and providing social and health services
probably need to be reconsidered. The service system should be
based on regional structures larger than municipalities. In order
for sound and sufficiently uniform health and social policies to be
realisable even in the future, the systems for steering social and
health care activities should be adjusted to these foreseeable
developments. In practice, this means a shift from an extremely
decentralised model towards a more integrated model that safeguards
the future of the services that currently are the responsibility of
the municipalities by giving them an appropriate structural and
financial basis.
The range of social and health service providers will diversify,
with a greater emphasis on consumer- and client-oriented
approaches. When client expectations change and competition
increases, new challenges emerge. Global and international
co-operation becomes more important with changes in the world
economy and other global developments, and this is also reflected
in welfare among Finns. The country's social and cultural
development and the need for social and health services are
affected by developments in its neighbouring areas and the free
movement of labour within the EU and other types of immigration.
Long-term approaches should be applied in responding to challenges
posed by cross-border co-operation and Northern Dimension policies.
It becomes increasingly important to ensure effective co-ordination
between various international and national projects in the social
and health sector.
Immediate operational
prerequisites
In the operating environment of STAKES, one of the major challenges
in the forthcoming years is to be able to develop the system for
steering social and health care activities. In the future, steering
through information should be based on a strong strategic view of
development trends in society and an understanding of the
development needs of the service system. In addition, it should
make use of modern tools and appropriate knowledge and skills to
bring about the desired effects.
Multi-stakeholder approaches will obviously become increasingly
important in the area of research and development, too.
Rearrangements in national research funding practices and the
requirements concerning competitive tendering represent challenges
that STAKES must face by focussing on its core expertise and by
networking with its key co-operation partners. When national
research funding is reallocated and opened up to competition, all
research institutes will find themselves in a competitive
environment where the impact of activities plays a key
role. |
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Published 2.2.2006, Updated
29.1.2007
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