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Key facts
- Human rights are universal rights of all human beings, regardless of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
- The right to health and other health-related human rights are legally binding commitments enshrined in international human rights instruments. WHO’s Constitution also recognizes the right to health.
- Every human being has the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Countries have a legal obligation to develop and implement legislation and policies that guarantee universal access to quality health services and address the root causes of health disparities, including poverty, stigma and discrimination.
- The right to health is indivisible from other human rights, including the rights to education, participation, food, housing, work and information.
- Universal health coverage (UHC) grounded in primary health care helps countries realize the right to health by ensuring all people have affordable, equitable access to health services.
Around the world, the right to health of millions is increasingly coming under threat.
Diseases and disasters loom large as causes of death and disability.
Conflicts are devastating lives, causing death, pain, hunger and psychological distress.
The burning of fossil fuels is simultaneously driving the climate crisis and taking away our right to breathe clean air, with indoor and outdoor air pollution claiming a life every 5 seconds.
The WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All has found that at least 140 countries recognize health as a human right in their constitution. Yet countries are not passing and putting into practice laws to ensure their populations are entitled to access health services. This underpins the fact that at least 4.5 billion people — more than half of the world’s population — were not fully covered by essential health services in 2021.
To address these types of challenges, the theme for World Health Day 2024 is ‘My health, my right’.
This year’s theme was chosen to champion the right of everyone, everywhere to have access to quality health services, education, and information, as well as safe drinking water, clean air, good nutrition, quality housing, decent working and environmental conditions, and freedom from discrimination.
- Know your health rights. You have the right to:
- safe and quality care, without any discrimination.
- privacy and confidentiality of your health information.
- information about your treatment and to informed consent.
- bodily autonomy and integrity.
- Make decisions about your own health.
- Protect your right to health as a basic human right.
Everyone should have access to the health services they need when and where they need them, without facing financial hardship. So, if you cannot access healthcare, that’s not right. Here are some ways to take action:- Advocate – appeal to political leaders, join health communities demanding action, participate in petitions and discussions.
- Organize your community – e.g. at work, church – to agree what needs to change and how.
- Promote the right to health as an intrinsic pillar of our broader human rights.
Respecting our right to health means respecting our rights to access safe drinking water, clean air, good nutrition, quality housing, decent working conditions, and freedom from violence and discrimination. - Champion health as a priority.
Get involved with decision-making around health. Examples of how to participate include: town-hall meetings and citizen assemblies, focus groups and consultations, health councils, steering groups and review boards.
- Every law counts; every ministry can and should legislate to realise the right to health across the full range of sectors:
- Finance: tax tobacco, sugar, and alcohol.
- Agriculture: eliminate trans fats; reduce amount of antimicrobials in the agri-food system by 30-50% by 2030.
- Environment: stop fossil fuel subsidies and subsidize or exempt tax of clean energy and fuels such as solar-, hydro- and wind-based electricity.
- Justice: prohibit all forms of discrimination.
- Transport: build up cycling infrastructure, support pedestrianization.
- Labour: Ensure decent work, worker rights and protections, and create fair, equal and gender-responsive working conditions for health and care workers.
- Social affairs / social development: Ensure access to social protection (e.g. health-care protection, pensions, unemployment benefits) to reduce households’ vulnerability to poverty and counteract the negative impacts of unexpected life events on income, wealth or health.
- Invest in health like your bottom line depends on it: an additional US$ 200–328 billion a year is needed globally to scale up primary health care in low- and middle-income countries (i.e. 3.3% of national forecast GDP).
- Deliver on the right to health: make health services available, accessible, acceptable and of good quality for everyone, everywhere.
- Be strategic and build from the basics: reorient health systems around primary health care.
- Champion transparency and accountability: tackle corruption by strengthening governance and working across sectors.
- Involve the general public in health decision-making: ‘social participation’ happens when individuals and communities are meaningfully involved in decision-making around health, e.g. town-hall meetings and citizen assemblies, focus groups and consultations, health councils, representation on steering groups and review boards.
- Know the health needs of populations and act on them: collect, analyze, use and monitor data, disaggregate by age, sex, economic status, education level, place of residence, race and ethnicity, and other characteristics and act to correct health inequities.
- Safeguard the right to health in war and conflict: protect health infrastructure and health workers and ensure uninterrupted access to health services, in adherence to international humanitarian and human rights law.
