The Council on Business & Society surveyed international populations from 6 business schools around the world with a key healthcare question. The results revealed a healthy number of differences in their answers! 

THE QUESTION: How important is each of the following issues for the national government in your country of citizenship to address for their citizens in the next five years?

The students were given ten issues listed below and asked to rank them as essential, very important, somewhat important or not important. 

1.  Access to health care
2. Caring for the elderly
3. Developing new treatments for common diseases
4. Fighting hunger and malnutrition
5. Improving the overall value of the health care delivery system
6. Improving pre-natal health
7. Preventing and treating HIV/AIDS
8. Reducing health care costs
9. Reducing stress and burnout
10. Slowing the spread of infectious diseases. 

Summary of Responses Reported as Essential and Very Important

•  ‘Reducing health care costs’ is the number one issue ranked by the students overall as essential or very important (in a combined score) for the national governments of their countries.
• The number one issue for national governments is not the same for different regions.
• The students from Central and South America rank ‘access to health care’ as the number one issue for their national governments (49 of 56 responses) as did the Africans (10 out of 11 responses).
• The North Americans rank ‘improving the overall value of the health care system’ as number one (84 of 97 responses).
• Both the Asians (127 of 150 responses) and Western Europeans (229 of 274 responses) rank ‘caring for the elderly’ as the number one issue for their national governments.

Useful links:

• Interested in health and healthcare issues at the crossroads of business and society? Download the Council’s free White Paper.

• Deepen your knowledge of key insights into CSR: Read issue #2 of the Council’s quarterly eMagazine Global Voice.

The Council on Business & Society Global Alliance is an international alliance between four of the world’s leading business schools and an organiser of Forums focusing on issues at the crossroads of business and society – The Council Community helps bring together business leaders, academics, policy-makers, students and journalists from around the world. Follow us on Twitter #The_CoBS