WHO's Global School Health Initiative, launched in 1995, seeks to mobilize and strengthen health promotion and education activities at the local, national, regional and global levels. The Initiative is designed to improve the health of students, school personnel, families and other members of the community through schools.

Health promoting schools focus on:

On the different types of taxes, excise taxes are the most important for promoting health because they change the cost of the taxed product relative to other goods.

Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs)

 Fiscal policies that lead to at least a 20% increase in the retail price of sugary drinks would result in significant  reductions in consumption of such products.

Alcohol

Hendra virus (HeV) infection is a rare emerging zoonosis (disease that can be transmitted to humans from animals) that causes severe and often fatal disease in both infected horses and humans. The natural host of the virus has been identified as being fruit bats of the Pteropodidae Family, Pteropus genus.

WHO works with Member States and partners to support the implementation of the health accounts system towards the goal of countries attaining universal health coverage. Through the Health Accounts Country Platform, WHO provides countries with the accounting framework System of Health Accounts (SHA) 2011, tools and technical support to institutionalize and set up a harmonized, integrated platform for annual and timely collection of health expenditure data.

Health accounts are a way for countries to monitor health spending across multiple streams, regardless of the entity or institution that financed and managed that spending. They allow health administrators to learn from past expenditure and improve planning and allocation of resources throughout the system, thereby increasing efficiency and accountability. The system generates consistent and comprehensive data on health spending in a country, which in turn can contribute to evidence-based policy making.

Raising domestic public funds is essential for universal health coverage (UHC). No country has made significant progress toward UHC without increasing reliance on public revenues. Therefore, domestic tax systems that are essential to support country’s fiscal space expansion are central to the UHC agenda. 

Law for Universal Health Coverage (UHC)

For all aspects of health, there are binding rules that govern the rights and responsibilities of governments, health workers, companies, civil society and a country’s population. Together these rules make up the legal framework, or legal architecture for health. They take many forms including: statutory laws, regulatory and administrative laws, contracts, case law, and customary laws. Who is involved in making these rules, and the form they take, differs from country to country. 

Health and energy are inextricably linked.  A warm meal. A warm room. A light for which to read or work at night. These needs are universal. For half the world, this is simple as flipping a light switch or turning a stove dial. But for the other half, meeting these needs require much more and puts their health and safety at risk.

WHO works with Member States and partners to prevent and reduce the harmful use of alcohol as a public health priority. The 2010 WHO Global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol is the most comprehensive international alcohol policy document, endorsed by WHO Member States, that provides guidance on reducing the harmful use of alcohol at all levels.

Alcohol as an intoxicant affects a wide range of structures and processes in the central nervous system and increases the risk for intentional and unintentional injuries and adverse social consequences. Alcohol has considerable toxic effects on the digestive- and cardiovascular systems.  Alcoholic beverages are classified as carcinogenic by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and increase the risk of several cancer types. Alcohol as an immunosuppressant increases the risk of communicable diseases, including tuberculosis and HIV.

Air pollution kills an estimated seven million people worldwide every year. WHO data shows that 9 out of 10 people breathe air that exceeds WHO guideline limits containing high levels of pollutants, with low- and middle-income countries suffering from the highest exposures. WHO is supporting countries to address air pollution. 

From smog hanging over cities to smoke inside the home, air pollution poses a major threat to health and climate.  Ambient air pollution accounts for an estimated 4.2 million deaths per year due to stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, acute and chronic respiratory diseases. 

The biologist Andrew Steele thinks ageing is a disease that can be treated. But if we had a cure for getting old, what would that mean for us?