Socioeconomic narratives for future healthcare and social welfare in Finland to inform climate change adaptation

Abstract

We present a seven-step method to co-produce, with stakeholders, four narrative extensions of the global shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) for the Finnish healthcare and social welfare sector. These are based on an iterative process centred around a workshop attended by approximately 40 participants offering a range of sectoral perspectives. Using general background global- and European-scale descriptions of the SSPs, workshop discussions were based on five key themes: society and lifestyle, the healthcare system, research and technology, education and information and the environment. These were addressed from the perspectives of citizens, service providers and decision-makers. The facilitated discussions were held in parallel for each of the SSPs 1, 3, 4 and 5, reflecting very different contexts for the development of the sector up to 2050 and beyond. Results reflect first of-their kind, national-level narrative interpretations of the global SSPs for the sector. Future trends for selected indicators are also presented to illustrate how the SSP extensions might potentially be applied in quantitative, model-based analyses. Whilst our results are broadly in line with projected global developments, they also show important departures, such as those related to rural–urban inequalities and to accessibility of health and social welfare services. Our results can contribute to the development of more detailed, national long-term scenarios at the nexus of climate change and health, whilst being consistent with global scenarios being applied internationally. The results can also be used, alongside climate projections, to support decision-making based on national- and local-scale climate change risk and adaptation assessment.

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