world health day: the crucial connection to improper waste management
world health day: the crucial connection to improper waste management
Jenny Zhao
— April 05, 2024
· 5 min read
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World Health Day is celebrated annually on April 7th to mark the anniversary of the founding of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1948. Every year, World Health Day focuses on a specific theme or health issue of global concern, with past themes including mental health, infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases, and food safety.
By providing digital resources, running campaigns and events, and collaborating with governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and other partners, World Health Day aims to encourage individuals, communities, and governments to promote global health and well-being.
2024 Theme ‘My health, my right’
Around the world, millions are facing growing challenges to their fundamental right to health. Diseases, disasters, and conflicts are causing death, pain, hunger, and psychological distress. Simultaneously, the excessive burning of fossil fuels drives the climate crisis and negatively impacts our right to breathe clean air, with indoor and outdoor air pollution claiming a life every 5 seconds.
Although at least 140 countries recognize health as a human right in their constitution, many nations are falling short in passing and enforcing laws that ensure their populations’ access to health services. According to the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All, in 2021, at least 4.5 billion people – more than half of the world’s population – did not have accesss to essential health services.
In response to these challenges, the theme for World Health Day 2024 is ‘My health, my right’. This theme aims to advocate for the universal right of individuals everywhere to have access to quality health services, education, and information, as well as to clean and safe environmental conditions, adequate nutrition, quality housing, fair working conditions, and freedom from discrimination.