A few days ago, President Xi Jinping chaired an expert meeting where he made important instructions and stressed the need to promote health in all policies, and implement the concept of life-cycle health management throughout the entire process of urban planning, construction and management of all aspects.

It is obvious to see from the white paper " Fighting Covid-19 China in Action", released on the 7th, that the policy of protecting people's life safety and health is an implementation of the concept of "people first, life first", and is a valuable experience in the prevention and control of the epidemic in China to make strategic achievements. A society where people's health is constantly improving is a vibrant, harmonious and orderly society. People are eager to maintain the good practices and habits formed in the prevention and control of epidemics, and they also look forward to the establishment of a long-term mechanism to protect the health rights of citizens in a comprehensive and full-cycle manner.

To promote health in all policies, we need to establish the concept of "big health, big health", enhance the concept of life-cycle health management, and fully protect citizens' rights to health education, equitable access to basic medical and health services, health information, and emergency medical assistance by improving policies in all areas, so as to transform the focus of health cause on treating diseases to a focus on people's health, and strive to maintain people's health in an all-round and all-cycle manner.

To promote health in all policies means that party committees and governments at all levels should put people's health in a strategic position of preferential development and integrate health concepts into all policies and their formulation processes, which not only include the specific policies in finance, taxation, education, health, science and technology, but also include the macro policies in economy, society, culture, ecology, politics and foreign affairs, and the entire public policy system should raise "health consciousness". All departments and industries should strengthen communication and collaboration to form a joint effort to promote health, and promote healthy living, optimize health services, improve health protection, build a healthy environment and develop a healthy industry.

To promote health in all policies, we must popularize health knowledge, incorporate health education into the national education system, and build a system for publishing core information on health knowledge and skills; develop and implement a health impact assessment system, incorporate the improvement of citizens' major health indicators into the government's target task assessment, and conduct systematic health impact assessments of various economic and social development plans, policies, and engineering projects; set up long-term mechanism and work system for the promotion of health literacy for all led by the government and with departmental cooperation, and social participation, in order to improve the health literacy level of urban and rural residents in China.

2020 will be a year of decisive victory for establishing a moderately prosperous society, and only by promoting "health in all policies", comprehensively and thoroughly implementing the "Health China" initiative, fostering the continuous development of health care and improving people's health, can we provide a comprehensive health care system for the whole society. The only way to lay a more solid foundation for health is to build a well-off society. (The end)

By Li Bin, Xinhua News Agency