What Does ‘Whole Health’ Really Mean for Health Economics and Outcomes Research?

ISPOR’s new strategic plan, launched in 2024,1 contained a new and bold vision: “A world where healthcare is accessible, effective, efficient, and affordable for all.” Part of that vision and the strategies outlined for its achievement include addressing wider influences on health beyond healthcare. Specifically, the strategic plan refers to ISPOR’s commitment to the concept of ‘Whole Health'. In summary, a Whole Health approach reflects a view that: 1. Healthcare produces more than health (narrowly defined), implying a need to extend conventional measures of outcomes (eg, health-related quality of life, quality-adjusted life years) and value; and 2. Health and wider outcomes can be produced by many inputs other than healthcare. In short, whole health implies that decision making should expand both what are considered as relevant inputs/costs and what are considered as relevant outputs/benefits. This entails extending the focus and scope of economic evaluation methods beyond healthcare interventions, expanding the commonly used health-sector perspective to address both wider outcomes and taking into account inputs and costs of policies and interventions across multiple sectors of the economy. Neither of the statements (1) and (2) above is new: the consideration of wider influences on he