World Health Day 2010: Key Facts, History, Issues, Events (VIDEO)

World Health Day 2010: Key Facts, History, Issues, Events (VIDEO)

World Health Day 2010 is being celebrated today, April 7, 2010, raising awareness about key health issues worldwide.

World Health Day is an annual event organized by the World Health Organization (WHO). This year, the theme is "urbanization and health" and WHO is holding a special "1,000 cities, 1,000 lives" campaign.

Between April 7 and April 11, a thousand cities will open public spaces to health and WHO will collect 1,000 individual stories of urban health champions. You can follow the campaign on both Facebook and YouTube.

There are five main issues affecting health in urban areas that WHO is focusing on: (1) noncommunicable diseases due to unhealthy lifestyle, (2) communicable diseases due to overcrowdedness, (3) increased risk of accidents or violence, (4) disorders and abuse, and (5) exposure to air pollution.

The first World Health Day was held in 1948 in conjunction with the founding of WHO. Since 1950, WHO has celebrated World Health Day on every April 7.

WATCH: This video by the RAISE Initiative highlights some of the health issues facing nations at war or suffering from natural disasters.

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