World Health Day is celebrated on 7 April to mark the founding of WHO. Each year, the Organization selects a key global health issue and organizes international, regional and local events on the Day and throughout the year to highlight the selected area.

World Health Day 2010 will focus on urbanization and health. The theme was selected in recognition of the effect urbanization has on our collective health globally and for us all individually.

With the campaign 1000 cities, 1000 lives, events will be organized worldwide during the week of 7 – 11 April 2010. The global goals of the campaign are:

• 1000 cities: to open up public spaces to health, whether it be activities in parks, town hall meetings, clean-up campaigns, or closing off portions of streets to motorized vehicles;
• 1000 lives: to collect 1000 stories of urban health champions who have taken action and had a significant impact on health in their cities.