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In 2022, after the pandemic of 2020-2021, the Futuribles International association set up a ’Health 2040’ Forum involving, among other things, work on the relations between health and the environment. Reflecting this work, Futuribles is publishing an article in this issue by Sylvie Znaty, William Dab and Kévin Jean on the handling of healthcare risks, their nature, and the need to anticipate them better in both public and private organizations. Unfortunately, both in France and elsewhere, we have seen the potential costs (in the broad sense: human, economic, political etc.) of a healthcare crisis, and we are now aware of the importance of risk-anticipation and prevention where health is concerned. But how, concretely, do we act and, most importantly, how do we act effectively? After reminding us of what the management of healthcare risks entails, this article describes what the elements of a policy in this area might be and the tools on which it has to draw: general guidelines, risk mapping etc. All of these are essential, but are likely to vary, depending on the standpoint adopted (whether as epidemiologist, entrepreneur, lawyer etc.). Znaty et al. also stress the different ways health issues are conceived in different countries — the same risks do not exist in the global South as in the North, in an industrial region as an agricultural one etc. Moreover, the healthcare risks we encounter today are very often multifactorial, which further complicates, on account of the diversity of the actors involved, how they can be foreseen and prevented. Given these different factors and, in order also to take into account the environment, which is also a major factor in the conditions of a population’s exposure to risk(s), the authors suggest adopting a firmly cross-sectoral, integrated foresight approach to developing risk management scenarios. They close with some thoughts on issues around the precautionary principle within the French institutional framework, taking as their aim to inform, reassure and protect citizens who are highly (too highly?) informed — but sometimes misinformed.