The League of Nations Health Organisation was the first international health organisation with a broad mandate and global responsibilities. It acted as a technical agency of the League of Nations, an institution designed to safeguard a new world order during the tense interwar period. The work of the Health Organisation had distinct political implications, although ostensibly it was concerned «merely» with health. Until 1946, it addressed a broad spectrum of issues, including public health data, various diseases, biological standardization and the reform of national health systems. The economic depression spurred its focus on social medicine, where it sought to identify minimum standards for living conditions, notably nutrition and housing, defined as essential for healthy lives. Attracting a group of innovative thinkers, the organization laid the groundwork for all following international health work, effective until today.

A history of the World Health Organization, covering major achievements in its seventy years while also highlighting the organization's internal tensions. This account by three leading historians of medicine examines how well the organization has pursued its aim of everyone, everywhere attaining the highest possible level of health.

In response to the call of the 48th World Health Assembly for a substantial revision of the International Health Regulations, this new edition of the Regulations will enter into force on June 15, 2007. The purpose and scope of the Regulations are "to prevent, protect against, control and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risks, and which avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade." The Regulations also cover certificates applicable to international travel and transport, and requirements for international ports, airports and ground crossings.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “One of the most important books I’ve ever read—an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.” – Bill Gates “Hans Rosling tells the story of ‘the secret silent miracle of human progress’ as only he can. But Factfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly.” —Melinda Gates "Factfulness by Hans Rosling, an outstanding international public health expert, is a hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases." - Former U.S. President Barack Obama Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse). Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future. --- “This book is my last battle in my life-long mission to fight devastating ignorance...Previously I armed myself with huge data sets, eye-opening software, an energetic learning style and a Swedish bayonet for sword-swallowing. It wasn’t enough. But I hope this book will be.” Hans Rosling, February 2017.

World Health Statistics 2019 summarizes recent trends and levels in life expectancy and causes of death, and reports on the health and health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and associated targets. Where possible, the 2019 report disaggregates data by WHO region, World Bank income group, and sex; it also discusses differences in health status and access to preventive and curative services, particularly in relation to differences between men and women.

This unique and engaging open access title provides a compelling and ground-breaking account of the patient safety movement in the United States, told from the perspective of one of its most prominent leaders, and arguably the movement’s founder, Lucian L. Leape, MD. Covering the growth of the field from the late 1980s to 2015, Dr. Leape details the developments, actors, organizations, research, and policy-making activities that marked the evolution and major advances of patient safety in this time span. In addition, and perhaps most importantly, this book not only comprehensively details how and why human and systems errors too often occur in the process of providing health care, it also promotes an in-depth understanding of the principles and practices of patient safety, including how they were influenced by today’s modern safety sciences and systems theory and design. Indeed, the book emphasizes how the growing awareness of systems-design thinking and the self-education and commitment to improving patient safety, by not only Dr. Leape but a wide range of other clinicians and health executives from both the private and public sectors, all converged to drive forward the patient safety movement in the US. Making Healthcare Safe is divided into four parts: I. In the Beginning describes the research and theory that defined patient safety and the early initiatives to enhance it. II. Institutional Responses tells the stories of the efforts of the major organizations that began to apply the new concepts and make patient safety a reality. Most of these stories have not been previously told, so this account becomes their histories as well. III. Getting to Work provides in-depth analyses of four key issues that cut across disciplinary lines impacting patient safety which required special attention. IV. Creating a Culture of Safety looks to the future, marshalling the best thinking about what it will take to achieve the safe care we all deserve. Captivatingly written with an “insider’s” tone and a major contribution to the clinical literature, this title will be of immense value to health care professionals, to students in a range of academic disciplines, to medical trainees, to health administrators, to policymakers and even to lay readers with an interest in patient safety and in the critical quest to create safe care.

Using internal documents, meeting records, personal interviews and secondary sources, Siddiqi analyses WHO policies and programmes from a non-medical perspective. He examines charges of politicization and traces their rise over the past two decades, including their recent link to fears about a complete breakdown of multilateral cooperation. Siddiqi also chronicles the Malaria Eradication Programme from its enthusiastic inauguration in the 1950s to its demise and substitution by less ambitious initiatives after 1969. Through this case study he illumines a strategic shift in WHO policyfrom the 'vertical' approach of targeting a single disease to a 'horizontal', multi-pronged attack on a spectrum of health problems.

The world is living dangerously - either because it has little choice or because it is making the wrong choices -- Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland WHO Director-General

The World Health Organization (WHO), as the United Nations specialized agency for health, has been at the centre of international health cooperation for over sixty years. With origins dating from the nineteenth century, WHO’s mandate is the attainment by all people of the highest possible level of health. The huge challenge of fulfilling this objective has not only required high-level technical skills, but has led the organization to engage with a broad range of political and economic interests. WHO has enjoyed many high-profile successes such as the global eradication of smallpox and SARS, and ongoing campaigns against polio and other diseases. On other issues, such as essential drugs, tobacco control and diet and nutrition, efforts to tackle the broader determinants of health has brought the organization into contact with issues such as globalization, poverty, social justice and human rights. Kelley Lee analyzes the WHO’s role in international cooperation, examining its changing structures, key programmes and individuals. Of particular focus are the challenges WHO has faced in recent years given the emergence of other global health initiatives and how WHO has sought to remain effective as the "world’s health conscience" within an increasingly complex global context.

This open access book is a collection of research papers on COVID-19 by Germán Velásquez from 2020 and early 2021 that help to answer the question: How can an agency like the World Health Organization (WHO) be given a stronger voice to exercise authority and leadership? The considerable health, economic and social challenges that the world faced at the beginning of 2020 with COVID-19 continued and worsened in many parts of the world in the second-half of 2020 and into 2021. Many of these countries and nations wanted to explore COVID-19 on their own, sometimes without listening to the main international health bodies such as WHO, an agency of the United Nations system with long-standing experience and vast knowledge at the global level and of which all countries in the world are members. In this single volume, the chapters present the progress of thinking and debate — particularly in relation to drugs and vaccines — that would enable a response to the COVID-19 pandemic or to subsequent crises that may arise. Among the topics covered: COVID-19 Vaccines: Between Ethics, Health and Economics Medicines and Intellectual Property: 10 Years of the WHO Global Strategy Re-thinking Global and Local Manufacturing of Medical Products After COVID-19 Rethinking R&D for Pharmaceutical Products After the Novel Coronavirus COVID-19 Shock Intellectual Property and Access to Medicines and Vaccines The World Health Organization Reforms in the Time of COVID-19 Vaccines, Medicines and COVID-19: How Can WHO Be Given a Stronger Voice? is essential reading for negotiators from the 194 member countries of the World Health Organization (WHO); World Trade Organization (WTO) and World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) staff participating in these negotiations; academics and students of public health, medicine, health sciences, law, sociology and political science; and intergovernmental organizations and non-governmental organizations that follow the issue of access to treatments and vaccines for COVID-19.