Co-authored Position Paper on Health Ownership

About: Joint preparation of a position paper for the Medical Delta programme “Gezondeheid van Jezelf”

Collaboration with: TU Delft; Universiteit Leiden; LUMC; Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam; Erasmus MC; UMC Utrecht; Design Academy Eindhoven; Hogeschool Rotterdam; De Haagse Hogeschool

This position paper defines health ownership as the awareness, value, and perceived ability to influence one’s own health, integrating cognitive understanding with emotional and motivational engagement. It distinguishes the concept from related terms such as self-management and empowerment, outlines its key attributes and prerequisites, and illustrates it through speculative scenarios spanning preventive, curative, and palliative care. The paper argues that strengthening health ownership can increase patient engagement, improve outcomes, and support more sustainable, patient-centered healthcare systems. SI-LAB’s contribution lies in developing and describing speculative scenarios as a way to engage with complex, interrelated theories.

These scenarios are designed to explore how health ownership might manifest in real-life situations without prescribing what “should” happen. Constructed across preventive, curative, and palliative contexts, each includes both positive and negative outcomes. Rather than judging behaviors against normative health standards, the focus is on how health ownership operates—highlighting factors such as awareness, responsibility, self-efficacy, and collaboration. This approach enables the concept to be examined in varied settings, reveals its interaction with related ideas (e.g., empowerment, self-management), and identifies conditions that can strengthen or weaken it.

→ Link to project: https://www.medicaldelta.nl/programmas-en-living-labs/society-transformatie/medical-delta-programma-gezondheid-van-jezelf