The Health and Consumer Affairs Department has set up an exhibition at La Ribera Market, open until Friday, May 15, to take the first steps in preparing the city's Second Health Plan. The aim is to encourage citizen participation in this project. Each panel in the exhibition features a QR code that provides access to a simple survey.

The purpose of gathering residents' opinions is to create a new municipal health project that also considers qualitative values, meaning citizens' perceptions of various aspects related to health and lifestyle habits. These results will complement the quantitative data already available to the City Council.

Since the first plan was activated in 2019, data has been collected annually to draw conclusions. This second health plan will incorporate all the information gathered from the first, including lessons learned. The design is already underway, and many standards will be part of this second edition of the municipal project.

This new focus for health promotion will build on existing information but also emphasize issues that have come to light in recent years. Consequently, emotional health will have a greater presence, and suicide will be a present reality. A department official highlighted that this area of health has always been more hidden from society. The evolution in public perception has led to emotional health being discussed more openly now. Therefore, this new project will also include initiatives on emotion management, as it is one of the fastest-growing health concerns today.

One of the key aspects in the development of Bilbao's Second Health Plan, which transversally covers all municipal areas, is that it will be designed “ad hoc.” This means that areas with greater deterioration due to inequalities will receive more attention, with specific projects developed for those zones. The report on the habits of Bilbao's citizens will form the basis of all policies. A primary focus will be the social reality of each population center, creating specific objectives for each environment. The precision of the data reflected in the exhibition allows the City Council's health policies to be adapted to the reality of each population nucleus.