One of the seventeen goals of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the UN in 2015 is "to enable everyone to live in good health and promote the wellbeing of all people at all ages".

The environmental, social and economic conditions in which individuals live, work and develop their daily activities influence a majority of the population's risk factors and health conditions – often representing “the causes of the causes” of disease. Thus, a situation of poverty tends to limit the opportunities to adopt behaviours favouring good health (e.g. healthy diet, physical activity, etc.), to live in healthy environments (safety, healthiness, pollution), to access the means of self-realization (education, social relationships), and to access quality health and long-term care services. 

The cross-departmental Research Programme on ‘Health and Health Systems’ seeks to coordinate, develop and contribute to the health-related work carried out within and across any of the three departments of LISER. The work focuses on primarily quantitative, social, economic & environmental aspects of health, by harnessing the expertise and infrastructure throughout LISER. 

LISER will contribute to this objective by developing high quality, multidisciplinary research on a broad range of topics, including:

(i) socio-economic and spatial inequalities in the health of individuals and populations,

(ii) socio-economic and environmental determinants of health,

(iii) the socio-economic consequences of health,

(iv) the economics of health behaviours,

(v) the rigorous evaluation – in terms of effectiveness as well as (where feasible) ‘value for money’ – of policies that may directly or indirectly influence these determinants, and

(vi) the assessment of health system performance.