The World Health Organization’s annual campaign culminates with the April 7 global health day.

1. The diplomats who met to form the United Nations in 1945 also discussed the need for a global health group; that led to the creation of the World Health Organization. Its constitution went into effect on April 7, 1948, and World Health Day is celebrated annually on April 7.

2. The World Health Organization uses World Health Day to focus on a particular health topic of concern around the world. In 2017, the campaign centers around depression; past years’ topics have included road safety, antimicrobial resistance, climate change and polio eradication, among others.

3. The World Health Organization has several other global health initiatives, including World Tuberculosis Day, World Immunization Week, World Malaria Day, World No Tobacco Day, World Blood Donor Day, World Hepatitis Day, World AIDS Day and World Antibiotic Awareness Week.

4. In 1953, the National Citizens’ Committee of the World Health Organization declared public health to be vital to peace throughout the world. According to The New York Times, the committee noted that it was “in our own interests to eliminate the conditions that cause ill health, poverty and unrest, for these, in turn, are the breeding grounds of communism.”

5. In April 1963, then-President John F. Kennedy took on hunger. In a message to mark the World Health Organization’s 15th anniversary, he said, “Let us dedicate World Health Day—April 7—to the proposition that we will have a world where every man, woman and child shall have enough to eat.”

6. Also in 1963, the World Health Organization tried to find the first baby vaccinated against tuberculosis. He was vaccinated on July 1, 1921, in Paris, and the organization hoped “to demonstrate that a vaccinated baby can grow into a healthy adult” even if surrounded by family members who were sick.

7. “Mental pollution” was a new menace for those living in cities, one that was a greater problem than air or water pollution, according to the World Health Organization in 1966. It was the subject of a series of articles crafted by the organization ahead of World Health Day; that year’s theme was “Man and His Cities.”

8. The World Health Organization marked World Health Day in 1977 with a vaccination drive to immunize children against six diseases: diphtheria, measles, polio, tetanus, tuberculosis and whooping cough.

9. Smoking was banned in 1987 at the World Health Organization in Geneva to mark World Health Day. At that time, non-smokers made up more than two-thirds of the 1,300 staffers at the Geneva headquarters, a WHO spokesman said. A small lounge was the sole exception to the ban.

10. In conjunction with World Health Day 2008, traffic police in Mumbai, India, declared a “No Honking Day.” Then-Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Harish Baijal said, “Lowering the decibel levels is not the priority, we have to educate people and still if they persist with honking, punitive action will be taken.”

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