Table 1.
Overview of the three scenario structures, composed by drivers and drivers’ configurations
| PESTLE category | Drivers | Worst-case (increase in inequalities) |
To the best of our knowledge | Best-case (decrease in inequalities) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Political | Cohesion funds (or other funds) for less-favoured regions | Reduction | Maintaining | Maintaining |
| Political commitment and public support towards universal access to healthcare | Weak | Weak | Strong | |
| Public expenditure in the healthcare system | Reductions | Priority with often insufficient funding | Increases | |
| Social protection policies for the elderly | Significantly weaker | Significantly weaker | Significantly stronger | |
| Investments in national social security systems | Significantly lower | Without significant change | Significantly higher | |
| Extent of compulsory education | Limited and non-harmonized | Extension with weak harmonization | Throughout the EU and increasingly harmonized | |
| Quality of Public Education | Decrease | A priority with often insufficient funding | Increase | |
| Economic | Healthcare efficiency | Significant decrease | Without significant change | Significant increase |
| Financial, Economic and Social crises | Deeper and long lasting | Occasional and regular | Mitigated cyclical global crises | |
| People's material deprivation | Increase | Small decrease | Significant decrease | |
| Economic inequalities | Increase | Increase | Decrease | |
| Social Insurance Schemes | Weakening | Without significant change | Strengthening | |
| Unemployment rate in Europe | Significantly higher | Without significant change | Significantly lower | |
| Long-term structural unemployment | Significant growth | Without significant change | Significant decrease | |
| Unemployment among 55+ | Significant increase | Significant increase | Decrease | |
| Employment precariousness | Significant increase | Small increase | Decrease | |
| Employment with low income | Significant increase | Small increase | Decrease | |
| Social | Concentration of people at of poverty and social exclusion | Higher | Higher | Lower |
| Medical quality and effectiveness of healthcare services | Deterioration | Improvements with many dissimilarities | Significantly higher | |
| Access to healthcare | More limited | More limited | Widening | |
| Quality and accessibility of the primary healthcare services | Significant reduction | Maintaining | Steady growth | |
| Access and Quality of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in remote and/or rural areas | Significantly lower | Without significant changes | Significantly higher | |
| Smoking restriction policies | Softer | Stricter | Stricter | |
| Diet and nutrition | Significantly less healthy | Limited improvement | Significantly more healthy | |
| Sedentary lifestyles | Increase | Limited reduction | Reduction | |
| Non-communicable diseases like diabetes and hypertension | Increase | Increase | Decrease | |
| Food security | Compromised | Without significant change | Improved | |
| Technological | Medical innovation (improved and affordable medicines, medical research and technologies) | Stagnation | Slow growth | Rapid growth |
| Environmental | Quality of the built environment | Decrease | Without significant change | Significant improvement |
| Quality of the natural environment | Decline | Without significant change | Improvement | |
| Quality of the outdoor air | Decline | Sustain the current levels | Improvement | |
| Climate change adaptation | Maladaptation | Limited adaptation | Improved resilient adaptation | |
| Climate change mitigation | Disengagement | Limited action | Engagement | |
| Priorities in terms of economic model: green-based vs. fossil fuel-based | Fossil fuel-based | Slow transition | Green-based | |
| Development and penetration of renewable energy production (water, wind, sun) | Slowdown | Increase | Significant and rapid increase | |
| Legal | EU environmental policies and regulations (air, water, soil, waste, noise, chemicals) | Ineffective | Limited improvements in effectiveness | Effective |