What is World Health Day?

Health for all-all for health Within WHO, 166 Member States are now unanimously committed to Health for All: a strategy firmly anchored on four basic pillars : • Technology-not necessarily so- phisticated but appropriate tech- nology, and by appropriate I mean not only scientifically sound but socially acceptable and economically affordable. • Political will to improve health so as to enable people to lead eco- nomically productive and socially rewarding lives. • Health sector cooperation with other key development areas such as education, agriculture, industry and information. • Last, but by no means least, community and individual parti- cipation in the quest for better health: All for Health by the Year 2000. A traditional midwife in India admires her latest arrival. Technology for Health for all need not be sophisticated, but it must be appropriate. Photo WHO/E. Schwab 4 The Alma-Ata Declaration on primary health care, now 10 years old, clearly mapped the road we are firmly engaged in. It is along this road that we should go forward, all of us, men and women everywhere who are not only the objects of de- velopment but are in fact the very subjects of that development and quite particularly of health devel- opment; men and women active in education, agriculture, industry, in- formation and so many other differ- ent walks of life, who understand the mutually beneficial effects of development, in harmony with the protection and promotion of good health. People everywhere, including top-level political and spiritual leaders, from north and south, east and west, are acknowledging over and above all their differences that health is good for all people and es- sential for human progress; that there is both economic value and social justice in health. Surely we must all recognise that health is not everything, but that there is noth- ing without health. In the interest of the human race there must be Health for All and All for Health. • 11 9 4 81 WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION \(Vhat is World !.Health .Day? The seveMth ofApril each year is celebrated as World Health Day, because it marks the date in 1948 when sufficieRt couR- tries had ratified their sigRatures to briRg the CoRstitutioR of the World Health OrgaRizatioR, iRto force. Ever siRce 1950, a theme 'related td iRtematioRal public health has beeR choseR for World Health Day, withaR appro- priate slogaR. Thus iR 1954 the slogaR was :" The RUrse--'-pioneer of health," iR 1972 ~~Your heart is your health " and 1982 "Add life to years." All over the world, wt-lo natioR- aL committees, >United NatioRs : asSOCiatiORS aRd ''ROR-govem- mental or,gaRizatioQS help .... to · arraRge eveRts related to .. the theme. Over the years; ' the World Health Day events have attracted more aRd more cover- age by the media-whether Rewspapers or radio or televi- .sioR . .. And the impetus , q!qes not ce,ase wher} the Di3Y is · ~yer: the theme is regarded as ~.?lid for the rest of the year. · This year's World Health Day, · 7 April, is also WHO's 40th birth- day. The OrganizatioR is in a mood to derive the lessoRs for the >fUtUre HH from the . CJChieve- ·, meRts·:_and, setbacks --of. the . past · A'yearmthat will 'also mar~ the >·1 Oth,.aRRivers(3ry of the his- toric DeCiaratioR Of Alma-Ata of- fer's a gql9~nopportu :pity to hign- light .the need for equity aRd ,. justice in health, •tq re~state the aims em,bqoied in .. the goal of '. Health for ~11 by t.re year .2000 ' 9greed by all WHO's · member countries, and to emphasise .. oRce more that Health .for,alt will , ..!i be, pttaiRed T)ot:bY ·high-tech hos- ..... , p1tal~ but by pnmary health care apd,;' the COmrr)uRity's :. invoiV(3"' ment in its . .qvvn health. 1, . · This. is .w~y the slogan chosen .for )Norld f-i,ealth Day .19,853 J.? Health to,f aii.-calf for health. rj WORLD HEALTH, Jan./Feb. 1988