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April 7th of each year is designated as World Health Day and celebrated by the 191 member countries of the World Health Organization (WHO) to emphasize significant issues in public health of worldwide concern. World Health Day offers a unique opportunity to raise global awareness of a specific health theme.
World Health Day 2016 theme: "Beat diabetes - Action needed to halt rise in diabetes". |
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World Health Day 2016: Beat diabetes - Action needed to halt rise in diabetes
The number of people living with diabetes has nearly quadrupled since 1980 to 422 million adults, with most living in developing countries. WHO is marking World Health Day, 7 April, by calling for action on diabetes. In its first gGlobal report on diabetes, WHO highlights the need to step up prevention and treatment of the disease.
- World Health Organization |
Diabetes and its links to sustainable development |
Diabetes is a "lifestyle" dicease - a condition resulting from a number of issues realted, in fact, to broader sustainabe development:
- Urbanized lifestyles that we lead today requires much more resources than what nature can provide, as illustrated by the concept of ecological footprints.
- Our overconsumption of food resources is the tenecious link to food security and environmental damage.
- The convenience and layout of how our cities are designed, including transportation networks that prioritize cars and motorized transport, has a direct link to our health, and to the incidence of diabetes - typically "urban" in its character.
- The universal access and time-saving that ICTs and other technologies enable may be favourable, but it also creates dependencies that eventually affect our health.
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