World Health Day 2022 Theme, Significance, History

They say the greatest wealth one possesses is ‘health’.  They also say that health is not valued till sickness comes. Hence, we celebrate World Health Day to remind ourselves the importance of remaining truly healthy and draw attention towards significance of global health.

World Health Day is observed annually on April 7 under the censorship of the World Health Organization (WHO) and other related organizations. It is one of the 11 official global health campaigns marked by WHO.

The WHO held the First World Health Assembly in 1948.  Later, the Assembly decided to observe World Health Day on April 7 every year, with effect from 1950.

The theme for World Health Day 2022 is ‘Our planet, our health’.

Amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, ongoing environmental crisis and increasing diseases like cancer, heart diseases, etc, the WHO said that it will focus global attention of urgent actions needed to keep humans and planets healthy and foster a movement to create societies focused on well-being.

As per estimates of WHO, over 13 million deaths across the globe are due to avoidable environmental causes. Thus, climate crisis is also considered a health crisis now.

Over 90% of human population breathe unhealthy air that come from burning of fossil fuels.  Mosquitoes spread diseases are growing farther and faster.  Extreme weather conditions like land degradation and water scarcity are displacing people and harshly affecting their health.  Harmful chemicals and plastics dumped into water bodies have made their ways into the food chain, thus adversely affecting the health of people.  Increasing consumption of highly processed and unhealthy foods and beverages are shooting the numbers of obesity, cancer and heart disease patients up.  Hence, spreading awareness about society’s’ well-being has grown important now more than ever.