The leader of the Commission, Rector Ole Petter Ottersen, is initiating a process to establish an Independent Scientific Panel on Global Social and Political Determinants of Health. The proposal to establish such a panel is one of the main recommendations of the Commission whose primary aim has been to identify and critically examine policies and practices outside the health sector which impact negatively on people’s well-being. Their report has already attracted considerable international attention.
The Panel will deploy the best minds to analyse the complex interaction of forces that lead to health outcomes, the risk factors we face and the varying effectiveness of different global governance arrangements for enabling and protecting health. Competing or conflicting interests among stakeholders underline the need for a fully independent global monitoring mechanism. The Panel will call for, receive, assess, analyze, debate and communicate multiple lines of independent evidence –across disciplines - and provide independent and transparent strategic information to the UN and other actors influencing global governance for health. The editor of the Lancet has undertaken to publish the findings of the Panel on an annual basis.