Mark these days for health in your calendar

Global public health days offer great potential to raise awareness and understanding about health issues and mobilize support for action, from the local community to the international stage. There are many world days observed throughout the year related to specific health issues or conditions – from Alzheimer’s to zoonoses.

However, WHO focuses particular attention on the 7 days and 1 week that WHO Member States have mandated as “official” global public health days. These are:

• World TB Day, 24 March
• World Health Day, 7 April
• World Malaria Day, 25 April
• World Immunization Week, 24-30 April
• World No Tobacco Day, 31 May
• World Blood Donor Day, 14 June
• World Hepatitis Day, 28 July
• World Antibiotic Awareness Week, 13-19 November
• World AIDS Day, 1 December

Join in for better health

Whether you are taking the kids to be vaccinated, talking to students on the devastating health effects of tobacco, organizing a mobile blood collection in your community, or contributing to the online conversation through social media, you can play a part in these worldwide efforts to create a healthier world.

Leading up to each day, this is where you will find background information, graphics, multi-media links, facts and figures that help highlight the issues and focus global attention on today’s major public health challenges.

If you have comments or questions, please write to: mediainquiries@who.int

We have developed a set of posters Depression: Let’s talk for use in campaign activities and beyond. Each poster depicts a conversation between two people about depression: a mother and daughter; a mother with her young baby and a health-care worker; a student and teacher; two men at work; and an older women with a younger woman.