We are living in a time when multiple challenges to global health interact and reinforce one another. The climate crisis, emerging infectious diseases, war and conflict, and growing social and economic inequalities are contributing to a global polycrisis. However, at the same time, we are experiencing an era of remarkable progress in medical, technological, political, financial and administrative innovation. Innovative therapeutic approaches, preventive measures and precision medicine are creating new opportunities to prevent and treat diseases that previously had a fatal prognosis.
Technological innovations, such as telemedicine, have the potential to dramatically increase access to health services, particularly in underserved and remote communities. The development of responsible as well as ecologically and socially sustainable artificial intelligence agents can support prevention, diagnostics, treatment and medical documentation. Two aspects of innovative developments – the need for equitable access to new health options and the use of innovation to foster precision prevention – are particularly relevant.
Equitable access
Medical progress should be regarded as a global common good. Health is a human right and a basis for peace and prosperity. Access to essential health care should not depend on where a person lives or their economic status.
However, significant constraints remain in ensuring that innovations positively contribute to universal health coverage. The high costs of new treatments and technological monopolies have the potential to increase inequalities and widen the gap between high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries. Many innovations are not developed or scaled with global markets in mind. The costs associated with research and development, combined with corporate profit expectations, can limit investment in products that offer lower profit margins or primarily serve populations with limited purchasing power. At the same time, growing nationalistic tendencies and the dominance of a small number of technology companies create a risk of technological monopolisation.
Thus, innovation comes with a responsibility to share its benefits with those who need them most. This responsibility cannot be addressed effectively by individual researchers and institutions and the involved industries alone. We need national and international scientific and health diplomacy to harmonise individual, institutional and national interests with overarching humanitarian, strategic and political goals.
Analogously, new financing mechanisms must be implemented to support local manufacturing and strengthen South–South cooperation. With technological and economic development, scaling needs to be a strategic goal to safeguard greater distribution and availability of medicines and medical technologies. To support widespread acceptance and uptake, communities should be involved in the development of crucial technologies from the outset. Innovation should respond to real needs and be designed with the people who will ultimately use it.
Prevention
Using innovation to foster health coverage and resilience for societies globally will also require recognising that prevention must precede and complement diagnosis and treatment. This not only applies to infectious diseases and pandemic prevention, but also, to the same degree, to non-communicable diseases.
We must not overlook innovations addressing structural prevention. As emphasised in the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, health is shaped by medical care and by the environments and societies in which people live. We should therefore design public spaces, workplaces and communities in ways that encourage physical activity and healthy nutrition and provide adequate heat protection. Fundamental changes are also needed in areas such as transportation, digitalisation, housing and the economy.
Innovative high-tech medicine may also offer new opportunities. Most approaches heavily rely on the use of artificial intelligence and include genetic and epigenetic approaches for risk stratification, new diagnostic modalities, precision prevention, predictive and personalised health technologies. Such approaches could potentially reduce health costs in the long term by preventing severe disease, maintaining health longer and enabling earlier intervention. However, they often require considerable investment in infrastructure, research, technology and health systems in the first place.
Conclusion
Health should be recognised as a key determinant of resilient societies and integrated into decision-making across sectors. Medical, technological, financial, political and social innovations offer transformative opportunities to improve global health but may also deepen inequities and tensions. Responsible innovation therefore requires clear principles that prioritise prevention, equitable access to care and the social determinants of health. All sectors share a responsibility to ensure that innovation benefits everyone and advances better health, greater resilience and equity.
