Regions for Health Network (RHN)

Since its inception in 1992, the Regions for Health Network (RHN) has complemented work for health carried out at the national level by supporting the development of policies and strategies to improve health at the level immediately below it.

RHN members work to strengthen health in many ways:

• to guide and support new European Union (EU) regions;
• to cooperate on regional health systems and information development;
• to support members requesting help;
• to promote links between regions.

RHN members promote excellence and effectiveness in their regions by sharing resources and good practice.  They exchange ideas and experience on the structures, processes and skills essential for working across sectors to build new alliances for health, and openly discuss some of the obstacles and threats to this approach.  In a spirit of solidarity, members work together on specific projects to bring changes for health gain at the regional and local levels.

More recently RHN has focused on strengthening its work on health systems and the implications of this for regions. 

In November 2006, the RHN secretariat was outsourced to member regions on a rotational basis. 

Starting from February 2007, the first member region elected to host the Secretariat was Hungary.

Today, RHN comprises 29 regions in 18 countries.