April 7 Marks Observance of World Health Day

"Working Together for Health" is the theme on April 7 as World Health Day celebrates the contributions of health care workers and sounds an alarm about health professional shortages.

"All over the world, national health systems are finding it difficult to train, sustain and retain their health workers," says Dr. Lee Jong-wook, director-general of the World Health Organization, in a message about the WHO-sponsored day. "In developed countries, as populations age and chronic conditions increase, there is an ever-growing demand for health workers. That need is increasingly being met by recruitment of trained workers from developing countries; a trend which exacerbates the resource shortfall there."

Family physicians can use the World Health Day toolkit WHO has developed to highlight the importance of health professionals and drive home the need to address shortages. The toolkit points to a global shortage of more than 4 million doctors, midwives, nurses, pharmacists, dentists and support workers. "Decades of cost-cutting and underinvestment in health have also resulted in truly terrible working conditions for many in the health workforce," says the introduction to the toolkit. "The morale and performance of overburdened, underpaid and unsupported health workers have sharply declined. … This has led to loss of health workers, deterioration of health services and erosion of public trust in the health system."

The toolkit outlines four priorities:

The toolkit gives action steps for the four priorities, as well as suggestions for promoting World Health Day. Activities around the world include observances in Austin, Texas; Cleveland; Lexington, Ky.; Malone, N.Y.; Miami; and San Jose, Calif.