World Health Day 2020

Support nurses and midwives

What is World Health Day about?

7 April 2020 is the day to celebrate the work of nurses and midwives and remind world leaders of the critical role they play in keeping the world healthy. Nurses and other health workers are at the forefront of COVID-19 response - providing high quality, respectful treatment and care, leading community dialogue to address fears and questions and, in some instances, collecting data for clinical studies. Quite simply, without nurses, there would be no response.

In this International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife, World Health Day will highlight the current status of nursing and around the world. WHO and its partners will make a series of recommendations to strengthen of the nursing and midwifery workforce.

This will be vital if we are to achieve national and global targets related to universal health coverage, maternal and child health, infectious and non-communicable diseases including mental health, emergency preparedness and response, patient safety and the delivery of integrated, people-centered care, amongst others.

We are calling for your support on World Health Day to ensure that the nursing and midwifery workforces are strong enough to ensure that everyone, everywhere gets the healthcare they need.

The tagline for World Health Day is: Support nurses and midwives.

State of the World’s Nursing Report 2020

On World Health Day, we are launching the first ever State of the World’s Nursing Report 2020. The report provides a global picture of the nursing workforce and support evidence-based planning to optimize the contributions of this workforce to improve health and wellbeing for all. The report sets the agenda for data collection, policy dialogue, research and advocacy, and investment in the health workforce for generations to come. A similar report on the Midwifery workforce will be launched in 2021. The full report in English and Executive summaries in the 6 official languages can be access from the link below. The language versions of the full report will be available in May 2020.

State of the world's nursing 2020: investing in education, jobs and leadership

The State of the world’s nursing 2020 report provides the latest, most up-to-date evidence on and policy options for the global nursing workforce.

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Videos

Call to Action

General public

AKDN / Christopher Wilton-Steer

Policy makers

Health workers

A midwife helps a mother with breastfeeding at a hospital

Save the Children/C. Dowsett

Show nurses and midwives your appreciation for their work and thank them for what they do to keep us healthy.
Call on local leaders to do more to support nurses and midwives and make investments that enable them to work to their full potential.

Invest in nursing and midwifery education and employment so universal health coverage becomes a reality everywhere.
Strengthen and pay more attention to nursing and midwifery influence and leadership: health services will improve as a result
Take steps to improve gathering of workforce data in order to better target resources and make changes where they are needed most.

Show your respect for nurses, midwives and other fellow health workers.
Listen to their views and explore their ideas.
Engage nurses and midwives in decision making.

Get involved

Thank health workers or your favourite nurse/ midwife

Nurses, midwives and all health workers are on the COVID-19 frontline. Take a moment to thank them and show them your appreciation. Share photos and videos of and from nurses and midwives, or other health workers, and patients explaining why their work is vital. Use #SupportNursesAndMidwives and #COVID19.