But we also know that not all social and economic investment promotes health. The key is to identify those investments that do. The Investment for Health approach is a deliberate attempt to tackle the roots of the main causes of ill health in a credible, effective, ethical and equitable manner. But we do not just mean the use of money. The investments that can be deployed to improve health cover the full range of resources available within society people, communities, land, buildings, and the environment, to mention but a few.
Investment implies choices and decisions.
This is what Investment for Health is all about making those choices, those investments that will improve people s health. Making investment decisions that promote the health of a population sounds very easy in principle. However, throughout Europe the evidence suggests that it is not. This may be partly due to the complexity of investment decisions. Health is determined by the interplay of wide-ranging factors.