World Health Day will be observed today. The highlight of the day will be a multi-cultural Health Fair at the Fred Westby Park in Belize City. The theme for this year’s World Health Day is “Urbanization and Health.” According to the Ministry of Health, the observation and the theme will provide an opportunity to focus on the many health challenges related to water, environment, sanitation, violence and injury, non-communicable diseases and their risk factors including tobacco use, unhealthy diets, physical activity, harmful use of alcohol as well as the risks associated with diseases outbreaks in cities and towns. During tomorrow’s health fair, which is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Health, the Pan American Health Organization and the Belize City Council, there will be free HIV Testing, Blood Pressure Monitoring, Glucose Testing and Body Mass Index. This year in connection with World Health Day festivities, a global campaign called one thousand cities, one thousand lives has been initiated.
It is intended to encourage cities, towns, neighborhoods and local authorities to conduct health-promoting activities on or around World Health Day. The campaign promotes opening up of public spaces to health, for example by closing off portions of streets to motorized vehicles and opening them up to people, holding town hall meetings, and community forums, promoting more active civil society participation in local planning and governance, initiating clean-up campaigns and conducting work-place and school based health initiatives. In 1948, the First World Health Assembly called for the creation of a "World Health Day" to mark the founding of the World Health Organization. Since 1950, World Health Day has been celebrated on the 7th of April annually. World Health Day is a worldwide opportunity to focus on key public health issues that affect the international community.
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