Healthcare Without Growth? The Opportunities and the Challenges of Degrowth for Health and Healthcare, with Martin Hensher

Cohosted by the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, York University; the Collaborative Centre for Climate, Health and Sustainable Care, University of Toronto; the Institute for Inclusive Economies and Sustainable Livelihoods, University of Toronto, Scarborough.

Global and national economic growth rates have been slowing for decades. Some embrace deliberate “degrowth” or “post-growth” economic strategies as an essential precondition for avoiding ecological and societal collapse; others see involuntary degrowth as an inevitable consequence of failing to remain within planetary boundaries. Reducing harmful overconsumption may offer profound opportunities to improve health; yet modern healthcare systems are deeply dependent upon economic growth, and may struggle to remain viable under conditions of degrowth. In this talk, Professor Martin Hensher will consider the opportunities, risks and challenges for health and healthcare in a degrowth or postgrowth world – and how we might best prepare for them.

Speaker Profile

Professor Martin Hensher is the Henry Baldwin Professorial Research Fellow in Health Systems Sustainability at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research at the University of Tasmania. His program of work explores how healthcare systems can meet the environmental, economic and social challenges of the years ahead. Martin draws on health and ecological economics to explore big systemic challenges: how health care can respond to climate change and ecological crisis, how it might function in a slower-growth future, and why investing more resources might increasingly not lead to better outcomes. Professor Hensher has over thirty years' experience in health economics, planning and financing, gained in the UK, Australia, Africa, Europe and Central Asia. Professor Hensher served as the European Union Consultant in Health Economics in the South African National Department of Health; senior economic adviser in the Department of Health England; and a senior executive in the Tasmanian Department of Health

Recommended Readings

• Hensher, Martin. (2023). Preparing for the degrowth transition in healthcare: understanding the challenges and opportunities. Degrowth Journal 1, 00033.
• Hensher, Martin and Aillon, Jean-Louis. Degrowth: health and healthcare in Nelson, Anitra (Ed.) (2025), Routledge Handbook of Degrowth, p250-264.
• Hensher, Martin et al. (2024). Health economics in a world of uneconomic growth. Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, 22(4), 427-433.