Who do you call when you have a hundred million DKK for healthy aging?

Helle Terkildsen Maindal and Mogens Vestergaard from Health. Along with three other health professionals, they make up a new investment council tasked with identifying interventions and activities to address future challenges in the health and elderly care sector in Aarhus Municipality.

There are a total of four AU representatives in the new investment council for Aarhus Municipality's health fund. They will provide the municipality with the latest knowledge in health system organization, innovation, prevention, business collaboration, health economics, and health equality. Photo: Martin Dam Kristensen og Simon Fischel, AU Health

Aarhus Municipality anticipates an increase of 5,000 more of the oldest elderly residents—those aged 80 and above—over the next ten years. Additionally, the number of chronic disease patients is on the rise.

These are the challenges that Professor and Acting Head of Department Helle Terkildsen Maindal from the Department of Public Health and Professor Mogens Vestergaard from the Department of Clinical Medicine will help to address, drawing on their extensive research and knowledge in health promotion, health inequality, clinical epidemiology, and general practice.

The new investment council will focus on early detection of dementia, support for citizens with chronic illnesses, and long-term initiatives that promote a healthy and active life without disease.

Also included in the new investment council for the health fund are Business Director Lone Ryg Olsen and Professor Philipp Schröder, both from Aarhus University, and Chair of the Danish Council on Ethics Leif Vestergaard Pedersen. The latter serves as the chair of the investment council.

During the 2023-2026 budget agreement, a broad majority in the city council decided to establish a health fund of DKK 105 million to invest in reducing the significant challenges that Aarhus Municipality faces in the health and elderly care sector.

The article is based on press material from Aarhus Municipality.

Contact

Professor and Acting Head of Department Helle Terkildsen Maindal
Aarhus University, Department of Public Health
Phone: +45 25 46 23 20
Email: htm@ph.au.dk

Professor and General Practitioner Mogens Vestergaard
Aarhus University, Department of Clinical Medicine
Phone: +45 23 43 99 90
Email: mv@clin.au.dk