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Join the World Health Organization this year on April 7, 2019

in celebrating World Health Day.

Every year on April 7, the World Health Organization (WHO) celebrates World Health Day as a way to promote awareness and advocacy towards different health related issues. WHO has diligently worked for over 50 years to shed light on themes such as mental health, climate change, maternal and child care. The hope is to turn people’s attention towards these concerns throughout the world that goes beyond a singular day of recognition.

Up with People believes in developing our youth to become positive agents of change. In doing so, we want to continue educating and spreading awareness on topics that affect not only our local communities, but the entire world. With World Health Day 2019 approaching, we thought it would be a great idea to discuss the importance of acknowledging this day every year as a way to promote issues that concern each and every one of us.

World Health Day originally began at the First Health Assembly in 1948 and is now a day we celebrate internationally led by more than 7,000 people from more than 150 countries.

This year, WHO is focusing their campaign on universal health coverage (UHC) as a way to bring worldwide attention to one of the key factors in the UN Member States’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

UHC’s primary focus is to ensure that all people have access to quality health services without the fear of financial difficulties. This initiative includes a wide scope of services a person would need throughout their life including health promotion, prevent, treatment, rehabilitation, and palliative care. In order for this to be successful, WHO is striving to create a strong primary health care system.

World Health Day 2019 is celebrated after the “World Conference on Primary Health Care” of 2018 and before the the United Nations General Assembly will have their meeting on UHC to be held in New York in September, 2019. While these may seem like big tasks for major global players, there is still so much that can be done by individuals on a smaller, more localized scale.

Key Facts About UHC from WHO:

• 50% of the world’s population remains without full coverage of essential health services.
• About 100 million people are pushed into extreme poverty (living on $1.90 or less per day) because they are needing to pay for health care.
• Over 800 million people (which is about 12% of the world’s total population) spends at least 10% of their household budget on health care.

What can you do to participate in World Health Day 2019?

1. Start educating yourself, and in turn, educate others.
2. Make noise! Communicate your needs, opinions, and expectations to local policy-makers, politicians, and other representatives.
3. Share health service needs on social media accounts.
4. Share stories as affected community members and patients with the media or other important local figures.
5. Organize activities such as concerts, marches, interviews, and discussions to provide people in your community to interact with their representatives on the topic of UHC.