WHO Cares?!? Prioritising Health Promotion for Global Health Equity Advancement

The World Health Organization (WHO) has played a fundamental role in the advancement of health promotion for well over four decades. This commitment has been reflected through various iterations of the WHO Department of Health Promotion, which, in broad terms, provides global stewardship of health promotion advancement. While there is always room to strengthen health promotion leadership, structures and resourcing, the current Department of Health Promotion has played a critical role in offering visibility of, and stability for, the global health promotion community, as does the parallel Department of Social Determinants of Health. Key achievements of WHO over this period are plentiful, with more recent examples including: the championing of the Ottawa Charter, investing in a Commission on Social Determinants of Health from 2005 to 2008, advancing the global Health-in-All-Policies agenda, prioritising health literacy with respect to Non-Communicable Diseases and tackling concepts relating to the wellbeing economy]. This demonstrates that WHO has been a steadfast global leader in health promotion and instrumental in working towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Importantly, these commitments have shaped responses within the six WHO regional offices where local action and place-based approaches have consistently focused on addressing the social, economic, environmental, ecological, cultural, commercial and political determinants of health and wellbeing at national and regional levels. This demonstrates that WHO cares about health promotion! But all this is threatened by a reorganisation of health promotion at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, where there is movement towards disbanding the vital global infrastructure provided through its Department of Health Promotion.