World Health Day, spearheaded by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other related organizations, celebrates a day of global health awareness. It’s one of 11 official global health campaigns marked by the WHO, along with events like World Immunization Week, World No Tobacco Day, World Blood Donor Day, and more. Each year on April 7, World Health Day recognizes a specific theme that focuses on a particular lens of public health — past themes have included “Mental health: stop exclusion, dare to care” in 2001 and “protecting health from the adverse events of climate change” in 2008, to name a few.
The global pandemic shined a spotlight on existing health inequities and the urgency for interventions toward societal wellbeing and overall health. Our planet is experiencing record levels of pollution and people are seeing increasing incidences of disease. For World Health Day 2022, WHO has chosen to highlight these areas of concern with their campaign “Our planet, our health.” This campaign presents an opportunity for personal and environmental recovery.
Leaders are urged to:
- Coordinate partnerships between communities and government to get to the root causes of our planet’s most pressing challenges and find solutions
- Collect reliable health data to assess inequities across population subgroups
- Increase investment in primary care
- Act beyond our own borders when it comes to assuring an equitable supply medical care
- Consider organizations’ carbon footprints
While the WHO and various world governments are tasked with the logistics of ensuring true global health equity and recovery, what can People Teams do to recognize World Health Day this year?
Here’s some tips for how to promote improved wellness for our organizations and our planet:
- Recognize the work your team has done in the last year. “Employers should take a deep look at the sacrifices employees made for their companies to be able to support the shifts caused by the pandemic, whether they worked 10x harder to build new products or services or pushed boundaries to learn new things very quickly,” said Nyala Khan, Eden’s Head of Talent. “Appreciate their value to return the ‘wealth’ in the form of ‘health’ — offer alternate ways to give breaks, space, and time to decompress and recharge.”
- Use the day as an excuse to hold a Q&A or lunchtime meeting about what healthcare benefits are available to employees and ways to improve wellness. Make sure to highlight benefits that might be really beneficial but underutilized — think: credits for virtual exercise studios or discounts they can take advantage of.
- Promote virtual walking challenges and allow employees to highlight how connecting to the outdoors has made a positive impact on their lives. As an added bonus, encourage employees to pick up litter on their outdoor adventures. It’s a great way to foster culture in a remote landscape and get your employees moving.
- Every year, over 40 BILLION single-use plastic utensils are disposed of. Many of these pieces of cutlery are unnecessarily delivered when customers order takeout to their home or office. Encourage employees to take 5 minutes to join #CutOutCutlery and email DoorDash, and GrubHub to request that they make single-use plastic utensils available by request only.
- Educate your employees on WHO’s Health for All Film Festival — “Our planet, our health” award. People can vote and comment for their favorite film on the YouTube playlist using #HealthierTomorrow, #Film4Health, or even submit a short film for the “Our planet, our health” award between October 30, 2022 and January 30, 2023.
For more information on prioritizing your employees’ health, download our free eBook on Integrated 360 Care.
