Challenges

Chronic disease
We may be living longer than we used to, but more and more people suffer from chronic illnesses. The number of people with one or more chronic diseases is set to rise over the next twenty years by no less than 35-55%. The Netherlands expects to see a particularly sharp rise in conditions associated with old age, such as heart failure, dementia, CVA, visual impairment, coronary heart disease, COPD, arthrosis, osteoporosis, age- and noise-related deafness, diabetes and its associated complications, breast cancer and rheumatoid arthritis.

Health and health care
The Netherlands does reasonably well in terms of health, scoring better than average, though we do not rank among the healthiest European nations. Our lifestyle is a particular problem: smoking (although the number of smokers is falling slightly), inactivity (overweight) and a less than healthy diet. If we lived more healthily we could spare ourselves a lot of problems, and save society money. We already spend over 10% of our GNP on health care. The Dutch government and people want care that is both high-quality, effective, safe and accessible to all.

Science and medical technology
Our medical knowledge and treatment methods are the result of high-quality research. In recent years, a great deal of money and effort has gone into cell biology and genetics, and new fields – such as nanoscience, bioinformatics and neuroinformatics – have emerged. New medications, computer technologies and developments in imaging and diagnostics form the basis of modern treatment methods. But by no means all the new knowledge we have gathered has actually been put into practice. Translational research, which bridges the gap between laboratory studies and clinical practice, is still in its infancy.

Research and innovation
Improving the health and wellbeing of the population of the Netherlands requires a continuous stream of new knowledge – knowledge about how our bodies and minds work, about how our genes affect whether we develop certain diseases, about effective treatments and about how best to organise health care. But knowing how something works, or simply that it works, is no guarantee that people will actually use that knowledge. ZonMw therefore ensures both that new knowledge is continually made available and that people actually use it.