Pillar 3: Health resilience and demographic transformation
Populations are ageing, chronic diseases are increasing and health systems face new kinds of pressure. This pillar looks at how societies can build resilience, from the brain to the health system as a whole.
The challenge
Sweden and Brazil are changing in different ways. Both face ageing populations and a growing burden of chronic disease, but they do so under different conditions, with different health systems and different resources. Infectious diseases remain a concern, and recent years have shown how quickly a health system can be tested. Comparing experiences and building shared knowledge is valuable for both countries and for the wider global health community.
What we work on
- Ageing and neuroscience. Research on brain health, neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric conditions, and how they are best studied and treated in ageing populations.
- Chronic disease systems. Understanding how chronic conditions develop and how health systems can organise care for them, including renal, cardiac and metabolic disease.
- Infectious disease capacity. Building preparedness and research capacity in infection, inflammation and immunology, including vaccine research.
- Health system resilience. Studying what makes health systems able to absorb shocks and keep delivering care.
Why Sweden and Brazil
Collaboration between the two countries is already strong in neuroscience, cardiac and renal medicine, and infection and inflammation, which gives the pillar a solid starting point. Karolinska Institutet brings broad clinical and research expertise, and the University of São Paulo Department of Psychiatry brings strength in neuropsychiatry.
Brazil’s major public health institutions add something distinctive. Instituto Butantan and Fiocruz are internationally recognised for vaccine research, immunology and translational biomedical science, and they are among the main producers of immunobiologicals in Brazil. The University of Taubaté and brain4care bring additional perspectives, including technology for monitoring brain health.
How the pillar works
The pillar’s workshops and seed calls bring together clinicians, basic researchers and public health actors. Because health systems differ so much between the two countries, the pillar also uses comparison itself as a method: what works in one system, and why, and what can be learned by the other.
Pillar leads: