Constitution of the World Health Organization. Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
WHO works worldwide to promote health, keep the world safe, and serve the vulnerable. Our goal is to ensure that a billion more people have universal health coverage, to protect a billion more people from health emergencies, and provide a further billion people with better health and well-being.
The 1948 WHO definition of health is therefore as valid today as it was when it was published: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”
We champion health and a better future for all Dedicated to the well-being of all people and guided by science, the World Health Organization leads and champions global efforts to give everyone, everywhere an equal chance to live a healthy life.
The WHO framework for performance measurement consists of three intrinsic goals of health systems: health, responsiveness, and fairness in financing [1].
WHO's main functions can be summed up as follows: to act as a directing and coordinating authority on international health work, to ensure valid and productive technical cooperation, and to promote research. The objective of WHO is the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health.
Yet, philosopher Daniel Callahan took it seriously in 1973 and roundly criticized the definition for fatal overreach, arguing that to define “health” in terms of “well-being” transforms human happiness into a medical outcome and social ills like injustice, economic scarcity, and discrimination into medical problems ...
The WHO defines health as a state of “complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with a range of WHO partners, endorses this definition. Being healthy, in their view, excludes having any disease.
The World Health Organization (WHO) plays an essential role in the global governance of health and disease; due to its core global functions of establishing, monitoring and enforcing international norms and standards, and coordinating multiple actors toward common goals.
Health communication, as defined by The Community Guide, is: “The study and use of communication strategies to inform and influence individual and community decisions that enhance health.”
WHO's emblem was chosen by the First World Health Assembly in 1948. The emblem consists of the United Nations symbol surmounted by a staff with a snake coiling round it. The staff with the snake has long been a symbol of medicine and the medical profession.