Correspondence: Julia Levy, Alliance for Health and the Future 22–26 Albert Embankment, London SE1 7TJ, UK. Tel: +44 (0)207 820 7544; Fax: +44 (0)20 7820 7800; e-mail: julia.levy@healthandfuture.org

¹brings together significant international experience in healthcare, government affairs and the not-for-profit sector. Her healthcare industry experience includes working in strategy, sales and marketing at SmithKline Beecham and GE Healthcare. She also launched guideforlife.com, an online support for ageing, illness, bereavement and death. She has a degree in Biochemistry and MBA from INSEAD and has lived and worked in the UK, Belgium, France and the USA.

Received 20 April 2007; Revised 20 April 2007.

Abstract

Across the developed world, the demographic composition is changing as the birthrate falls and longevity increases. Increased longevity is a great achievement for society, but it also presents significant challenges for the provision of healthcare. On the one hand, new innovations offer the potential to better prevent, manage and cure disease. However, healthcare funding is now one of the key challenges facing payers. Healthcare manufacturers on their own cannot bring about all the changes needed in the system. There is an urgent need to take an integrated approach whereby all co-responsible players, including citizens and decision makers, share the responsibility of optimising quality and activity throughout life. This paper proposes that health leaders and other co-responsible players should change the manner in which they value health, by looking at health as an investment rather than a cost. Marketing professionals should actively contribute to this by leveraging their skills to motivate people to engage in prevention and wellness activities, to adopt healthy behaviours and to engage in chronic disease management programmes. Marketing professionals should also collaborate with third parties around health literacy and health promotion in order to drive a system-wide change towards better health across society. Improving the health of people generally can, in turn, be an important strategy for reducing costs over the long term.