Stories and Viewpoints

Access & Impact

April 6, 2023

The World Health Organization (WHO) is celebrating its 75th anniversary on World Health Day, April 7. The day serves as an opportunity for us all to look back at public health successes that have improved quality of life in the last seven decades. The theme for the day is ‘Health for All,’ which focuses on envisioning and working towards a world where all people have good health for a fulfilling life in a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.

The WHO believes that the right to health is a basic human right, and that everyone must have access to the health services they need when and where they need them. At Viatris, we are equally passionate about access to health. Access at scale is the core of our mission of empowering people worldwide to live healthier at every stage of life. Achieving global health equity requires a multi-faceted approach with many different stakeholders.

This year, we are highlighting a few of the many efforts we support to improve health equity:

• The NCD Academy – a collective project unifying knowledge and resources powered by the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and sponsored by Viatris, which provides healthcare professionals with easily accessible educational content around non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

• ​We recently announced, alongside the ACC, the launch of a new course - Health Equities and Social Determinants of Health in NCDs, which will help to address the ever-present demand for achieving health equity for all. The course aims to educate and increase awareness of health inequities and provide support on how to address them.

• The NCD Academy also covers many course topics spanning the most common NCDs. Unfortunately, in the wake of the pandemic, healthcare professionals’ workloads are continuing to increase, contributing to rising rates of burnout. Their excessive workloads and administrative burdens, among others, are simultaneously impacting healthcare workers’ ability to engage in continued education – a key tool in providing quality care to patients. The NCD Academy was created in response to this challenge. Learn more here.

• Health equity is a critical global issue that can affect every facet of healthcare. In this new study, researchers explore how health inequities have led to low rates of cancer screening in certain populations, and how different interventions to address this gap to date have yielded mixed results as interventions have not always been developed in collaboration with the people they target.

Join us in celebrating World Health Day as we all continue to contribute to achieving health equity for all.