Report

Healthy industry, prosperous economy

This report from UK think tank IPPR proposes a new approach to harmonise public health and industrial policy.

If we want both health and prosperity, then public health and economic strategy need to work in lockstep – but this is not the case today.

While there is a tendency in health policy to focus on what government can do for health through public service delivery, which is vitally important, there is huge health-creating potential for businesses, which employ most UK workers and have far greater investment power than the state. Better health is in UK businesses’ self-interest.

It’s time for the state and industry to work together on delivering better health and, in turn, a stronger economy. In this report, we propose a new approach – what we call ‘health in all industries’ – to harmonise public health and industrial policy.