What you need to know about World Health Day

Here’s what you need to know about the official UN day’s significance and history, the theme for World Health Day 2026, how Concern is celebrating this year’s theme, and how you can get involved. 

This year’s World Health Day theme is “Together for health. Stand with science.” April 7, 2026 kicks off a yearlong campaign to celebrate the power of scientific collaboration, which has helped to protect the health of people and the planet. 

Scientific innovations have vastly improved our quality of life and our health over the last century. Through multilateral support, science can help us do more to fight many of the pressing health challenges of our time, including nutrition, water, sanitation, epidemics, and mental health. 

Organisations like Concern work in this field of multilateral support every day with programmes that are designed to not only save lives but also provide the learnings, evidence, and data for entire countries and regions to replicate elsewhere. 

It’s easy to take our health for granted until an emergency strikes. It’s even easier to take for granted how much we owe to scientific innovation in 2026. Illnesses and infections that were once death sentences have now become manageable, preventable, at times even curable. 

We’re also at a point in time where the world is facing a series of complex threats to public health, from the global water crisis and conflict to funding cuts and the next potential epidemic. The global health partnership Gavi notes that “while 2026 is not inherently more dangerous than other years, several assessments suggest the world may be entering it less prepared than in the immediate aftermath of COVID-19.” 

What’s more, the scientific advancements in healthcare haven’t been distributed equally around the world. Many of the regions where Concern works are cut off from access to clinical care, and many of the clinics we work with struggle for basic necessities like electricity, clean water, blood, medications, and staff. Conflict zones and fragile states are less prepared to deal with a major outbreak or health crisis, and even when vaccinations or quality care are available, communities may ignore the resource owing to decades of misinformation. 

Concern works towards addressing these challenges every day. But having one day as a touchpoint serves as a chance for us to celebrate recent success in public health, while refocusing on the challenges faced by millions of people every day of the year.

We wouldn’t be where we are today without scientific advancements across all of our areas of work – advancements that also come back to benefit the health of the people we work with. Here are a few recent examples of how science has made our communities happier, healthier, and stronger. 

This century, Sierra Leone has made tremendous progress towards lowering one of the world’s highest maternal mortality rates. In 2000, it recorded 1,682 deaths for every 100,000 live births. In 2020, that rate dropped by nearly 74% to 443 deaths. The latest data from 2023 shows even more success (343 deaths). But this is still well above the global average (193) and far from the goal of 70. Concern has been helping to address this through Saving Lives in Sierra Leone, a multi-phased, comprehensive health-systems strengthening programme funded by FCDO. 

One of the innovations to come out of this programme is the CRADLE Initiative. Piloted by one of the organisations working with Concern on Saving Lives, Welbodi Partnership, CRADLE is an early-warning device that measures blood pressure and uses a traffic-light system (green, yellow, and red) to help healthcare workers detect early signs of some of the most common – and preventable – causes of maternal mortality, including pre-eclampsia, pre- and postpartum haemorrhage, and sepsis. 

This is an example of science without the frills: the CRADLE device is accurate, durable, and designed to be used in clinics and hospitals that may otherwise be under-resourced. Last year alone, over 2,300 referrals were made by health centres participating in Saving Lives to hospitals for further care. Of these, 978 were prompted by CRADLE, which caught early warning signs of hypertensive disorders, anaemia, and haemorrhage. Nearly 90% of these cases resulted in a safe discharge from the hospital and/or a successful delivery.

In 2000, Concern helped to pilot the programme now known as Community Management of Acute Malnutrition – recognised by the WHO as the standard-setting treatment for malnutrition among children under the age of 5. The results have helped significantly curb global hunger and malnutrition rates, making detection and care for acute malnutrition possible within communities that don’t have close access to treatment centres. 

Still, CMAM is a reactive programme; it responds to hunger crises that are already underway. And  we can only get so close to ending hunger in this manner. “We can throw money at treatments forever, but it’s not always a good return on investment,” says Katie Waller, Director of Strategic Partnerships with Concern Worldwide US. “Working towards prevention is much more cost-effective.”

Working with the Kenyan Ministry of Health, UNICEF, and local healthcare facility staff, Concern launched CMAM Surge in May 2012 across 14 clinics in three cities in Marsabit county. Working with weather tracking organisations and health teams at the clinic and regional levels, we were able to use data to predict when seasonal “surges” in malnutrition would take place. The pilot was so much of a success that CMAM Surge soon became the Surge Approach, and is now being used to track peaks in other common childhood illnesses. 

Today, the Surge Approach has been piloted in more than a dozen countries. In Niger, what began as a programme covering 11 health facilities now serves over 470 centres across the country. It was even integrated into Niger’s national CMAM Protocol.

Afghanistan’s Takhar and Badakhshan provinces are isolated in hard-to-reach mountain regions, which makes access to quality healthcare difficult – especially for expectant mothers. There are also cultural considerations around women seeking healthcare in these communities. 

As part of our Irish Government-funded programme, Empowering Communities for a Stronger Tomorrow, Concern has been making healthcare more accessible both physically and emotionally for families in Takhar and Badakhshan, supporting the establishment of clinics that provide essential care for reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health. Each centre is built to deliver 24/7 services. 

For this programme, we recruited local midwives to work in these centres, which helped to strengthen community support for these centres. We also worked with community health action groups and shuras to build more support and understanding around these areas of healthcare. These initiatives led to 60,000 patients being treated last year – including 528 skilled deliveries. 

World Health Day is a great time to learn more about the state of healthcare around the globe, including the scientific advancements being made to support a healthier planet. Below are a few stories that you can read and share today (and every other day!) with your family, friends, and communities – and, of course, on social media.