Child Mortality in the WHO European Region: New Data, New Urgency
13:00 - 14:00, Tuesday 14th October 2025
Chaired by: Professor Ingrid Wolfe OBE, Professor of Paediatrics and Child Population Health, Consultant Paediatric Population Medicine, Kings College, London
Panel Members:
- Dr. Alice Hucko, Clinical Scientist, Charité Center for Global Health
- Dr Amy Stevens, Public Health Consultant
- Dr Ralf Weigel, Paediatrician
Child mortality is one of the most powerful indicators of health equity. It reflects disparities in access to care, underlying social and economic conditions, and the extent to which societies prioritize the well-being of their most vulnerable populations. This webinar will present recent concerning trends in child mortality across the WHO European Region, drawing on the latest data from the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME). It will examine growing inequities in health outcomes within and between countries and consider contributing factors such as migration, armed conflict, and socioeconomic instability- forces that increasingly shape health outcomes for children across the region. Policy approaches aimed at reversing these patterns and guiding future action will be explored and considered in the context of building more equitable and resilient child health systems in the region.
A webinar supporting the development of a new WHO/UNICEF regional strategy for Child and Adolescent Health in Europe and Central Asia, as part of our Public Health in Practice Special Issue
Chair: Professor Ingrid Wolfe OBE, Professor of Paediatrics and Child Population Health, Consultant Paediatric Population Medicine, Kings College, London
Professor Ingrid Wolfe is Deputy Chief Medical Officer (Population Medicine) at Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, a Consultant in Paediatric Population Medicine at Evelina London Children’s Health, and Professor of Paediatrics and Child Population Health at King’s College London. She leads a clinical-academic group (CHILDS) working to advance and apply knowledge for improving child health. Alongside this, Ingrid is Director of King’s Health Partners Women’s and Children’s Health, Director of NIHR Applied Research Collaborative (ARC) South London, and co-Chair of the British Association for Child and Adolescent Public Health.
Ingrid is qualified in paediatrics and public health, enabling her to be a children’s doctor with a very broad perspective. She has on-the-ground insight from clinical practice, and an understanding of the population from public health. These two aspects come together in her NHS and academic work focusing on improving child health through strengthening healthcare, health systems, and informing policy in the UK and Europe. She leads several research programmes designing and testing interventions to improve child health, publishing and speaking widely in academic, clinical, and policy settings. She was awarded an OBE for services to children’s health in 2016.
Speakers:
Dr. Alice Hucko, Clinical Scientist, Charité Center for Global Health
Dr. Alice Hucko is a dual German-US board-certified pediatrician with a background in international public health and epidemiology. As a Clinical Scientist at the Charité Center for Global Health and the Institute for International Health, her work centers on advancing child health equity, with a focus on vaccinology, infectious diseases, access to care, and health systems strengthening. She has served as a consultant to the World Health Organization, supporting efforts to reduce child mortality and enhance the quality of primary care for children and adolescents in both high- and low-resource settings.
Dr Amy Stevens, Public Health Consultant, Yorkshire
Dr Amy Stevens is a Public Health Consultant in Yorkshire, UK with a degree in International Health and a Masters in Public Health (Global Health Stream). She has a special interest in child health having previously worked as a paediatric doctor in the UK, New Zealand and India. She works as the Public Health Lead at Bevan, a social enterprise providing health and wellbeing services to Inclusion Health populations, and has previously worked with Doctors of the World UK Policy and Advocacy Team, Save the Children Global Humanitarian team and the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England. She has recently been supporting WHO Europe develop their new Child and Adolescent Health Strategy.
Panel Member:
Dr Ralf Weigel, Paediatrician
Dr Ralf Weigel is a paediatrician and holds the Friede Springer endowed Professorship for Global Child Health at Witten/Herdecke University, Germany, since October 2017. Current projects in Malawi and Madagascar focus on strengthening child health services and promoting child rights in healthcare settings. Between 2010 and 2017, he worked at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine as a Senior Clinical Lecturer; he was also a postholder in the UK’s National Health Service as an Honorary Consultant. Between 2002 and 2010, he was employed by the Ministry of Health in Lilongwe, Malawi, as a clinical advisor for the Lighthouse Trust, supported by German technical cooperation. His role included mentoring, supervision, clinical care, and operations research in the management of HIV and TB. He undertook his paediatric training and worked until 2002 at the Charité Children’s Hospital in Berlin.