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A woman in a white shirt with her hands raised up enjoy the morning sun against the backdrop of mountains
Wellness serves as a vital pathway for enhancing quality of life, safeguarding human dignity and enabling every human being to realize his or her full potential.
Photo:Adobe Stock/olezzo

Promoting global wellness for all

Maintaining wellness through preventive, lifestyle-based, and people-centered approaches plays a vital role in saving lives, reducing healthcare costs, and delivering cost-effective solutions to preventable diseases. Such approaches strengthen public health systems and contribute to achieving health for all worldwide.

Recognizing the value and diversity of the cultures and traditional knowledge of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, the United Nations highlights the contributions of evidence-based traditional medicine in enhancing health systems and promoting holistic well-being. These time-tested practices, combined with modern approaches, form an inclusive foundation for global health.

International Wellness Day

To promote awareness and action for holistic well-being, the General Assembly 15 April as International Wellness Day. This Day serves as a platform for education, cultural exchange, and knowledge-sharing ¡ª encouraging people everywhere to embrace accessible, inclusive, and affordable wellness practices that enhance both personal and collective health.

The United Nations recognizes the importance of health, happiness, and well-being for every person. Building on earlier resolutions that established (20 March), (21 June), and (21 December), the UN emphasizes how these global observances complement each other in advancing wellness, harmony, and a balanced way of life.

Advancing the Sustainable Development Goals

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development emphasize health and well-being as central to achieving sustainable development. Goal 3, "Good Health and Well-Being," aims to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, addressing key challenges such as maternal and child health, communicable and non-communicable diseases, and access to essential medicines and vaccines. This target also highlights the importance of mental health, universal health coverage, and the reduction of health inequities to build resilient and inclusive societies.

The wellness sector plays a growing role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ¡ª from creating jobs and reducing poverty to promoting inclusive and sustainable economic growth. Wellness supports quality of life, protects human dignity, and empowers individuals and communities to adopt sustainable lifestyles and safeguard resources for future generations.

Resources

Resolution

  • International Wellness Day ()

Websites

Related Observances

SDG Goal 3: Good health and wellbeing with drawing of heart monitor line and heart

Great strides have been made in improving people¡¯s health in recent years. However, inequalities in health care access still persist. The Sustainable Development Goals make a bold commitment to end the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other communicable diseases by 2030. The aim is to achieve universal health coverage, and provide access to safe and affordable medicines and vaccines for all.

 

Psychologist and patient hold hands

Mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community. It is an integral component of health and well-being that underpins our individual and collective abilities to make decisions, build relationships and shape the world we live in. Mental health is a basic human right. And it is crucial to personal, community and socio-economic development.

 

an abstract illustration of people engaged in an event

International days and weeks are occasions to educate the public on issues of concern, to mobilize political will and resources to address global problems, and to celebrate and reinforce achievements of humanity. The existence of international days predates the establishment of the United Nations, but the UN has embraced them as a powerful advocacy tool. We also mark other UN observances.