Sponsored by the World Health Organization, World Health Day takes place every year on 7th April and is one of several worldwide initiatives deigned to create a focus on health and health issues. Created each year around a specific theme lots of areas have been the focus of World Health Day themes across the years, including some of note to the team at Jam Attic HQ: -
1998: Safe motherhood
2001: Mental Health: stop exclusion, dare to care
2003: Shape the future of life: healthy environments for children
2005: Make every mother and child count
2008: Protecting health from the adverse effects of climate change
2012: Good health adds life to years
2020: Support Nurses and Midwives
2021: Building a Fairer and Healthier World for Everyone
2022: Our planet, our health
This year is the World Health Organisation’s 75th anniversary, and the theme for 2023’s World Health Day is “Health for All”. Health For All envisions that all people have good health for a fulfilling life in a peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable world. The WHO is the using the day to remind the global public (all of us) on some key points. Primarily the campaign is framed around the right to health is a basic human right where everyone must have access to the health services they need when and where they need them without financial hardship. The WHO states that 30% of the global population is not able to access essential health services. Compounding this is the alarming statistic that almost two billion people face catastrophic or impoverishing health spending, with significant inequalities affecting those in the most vulnerable setting. The concept of Universal health coverage (UHC) offers financial protection and access to quality essential services, lifts people out of poverty, promotes the well-being of families and communities, protects against public health crises, and moves us toward Health For All. To make health for all a reality, the WHO wants: individuals and communities who have access to high quality health services so that they can take care of their own health and that of their families; skilled health workers providing quality, people-centred care; and policy-makers committed to investing in universal health coverage. Evidence shows that health systems powered by a primary health care (PHC) approach is the most effective and cost-effective way to bring services for health and well-being closer to people.
COVID-19 and other health emergencies, overlapping humanitarian and climate crises, economic constraints, and war, have made every country's journey to Health for All more urgent. Now is the time for leaders to take action to meet their universal health coverage commitments and for civil society to hold leaders accountable.