European Child Health Services and Systems Lessons Without Borders

In recent decades the health needs of children in Europe have changed.

We see more chronic disease than ever before, and persistent inequalities in health and wellbeing. However, despite increasingly sophisticated technology, the delivery of care and organizational structures of healthcare services have not evolved sufficiently to meet these challenges.

Taking a purposefully child-centric view this book aims toimprove our understanding of children's health services across Europe. Focusing on 10 Western European countries the book combines primary and secondary research on children's health services and wider child health systems.

Drawing extensively on literature reviews, government data,clinical case studies and a questionnaire distributed to child health leaders, the authors identify the common themes that are contributing to child health across the European landscape.

This book includes chapters on topics such as:

• Primary care for children
• Services for long-term conditions and non-communicable disease
• Child public health
• Mental health and behavioural disorders
• Services for vulnerable and maltreated children

This book illustrates that European countries face many common challenges in their attempts to improve child health, and highlights the opportunities for learning from each other. The authors conclude this book with a strategy for improving the capacity of European health systems to drive improvements in health and equity.

The findings in this book have already begun to inform how we think about the future of children's healthcare. This book serves as a wake-up call to all those concerned with the well-being of Europe's children.

Contributors: Jasmine Armour-Marshall, Sven Bremberg, Ann van den Bruel, Woody Caan, Rose Crowley, Peter Gill, Rittakerttu Kaltia-Heino, Marina Karanikolos, Sebastian Kraemer, Simon Lenton, Martin McKee, Arja Rimpelä, Giorgio Tamburlini, June Thoburn, Matthew Thompson, Pieter Auke Wiegersma, Ingrid Wolfe.