Ensuring healthy lives and promoting the well-being for all at all ages is essential to sustainable development. Significant strides have been made in increasing life expectancy and reducing some of the common
killers associated with child and maternal mortality. Major progress has been made on increasing access to clean water and sanitation, reducing malaria, tuberculosis, polio and the spread of HIV/AIDS. However,
many more efforts are needed to fully eradicate a wide range of diseases and address many different persistent and emerging health issues.
To ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.
Ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages is important to building prosperous societies.
However, despite great strides in improving people's
health
and well-being in recent years,
inequalities in
health care
access still persist. More than six million children still die before their fifth birthday each year, and only half of all women in developing regions have access to the health
care they need.
Epidemics like HIV/AIDS thrive where fear and discrimination limit people's ability to receive the services they need to live healthy and productive lives. Access to good
health
and well-being is a
human right,
and that is why the Sustainable Development Agenda offers a new chance to ensure that everyone can access the highest standards of
health
and
health care
-not just the wealthiest.
Major progress has been made in several areas, including in child and maternal health as well as in addressing HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
Maternal mortality has fallen by almost 50 per cent since 1990; measles vaccines have averted nearly 15.6 million deaths since 2000; and 13.6 million people had access to
antiretroviral therapy by the end of 2014.
We may have come a long way, but we still have a longer way to go. Real progress means achieving universal
health
coverage; making essential medicines and vaccines affordable;
ensuring that women have
full access to sexual and reproductive
health care;
and ending all preventable deaths of children.
Ensuring healthy lives for all requires a strong commitment, but the benefits outweigh the cost. Healthy people are the foundation for healthy economies.
For example, if we spent $1 billion in expanding immunization coverage against influenza, pneumonia and other preventable diseases, we could save 1 million children's lives each year. In the past
decade, improvements in
health and
health care
led to a 24 per cent increase in income growth in some of the poorest countries.
The cost of inaction is greater-millions of children will continue to die from preventable diseases, women will die in pregnancy and childbirth, and
health care
costs will continue to plunge millions
of people into poverty. Noncommunicable diseases alone will cost low- and middle-income countries more than $7 trillion in the next 15 years.
You can start by promoting and protecting your own
health and the health of those around you, by making well-informed choices, practicing safe sex and vaccinating your children.
You can raise awareness in your
community
about the importance of good health, healthy lifestyles as well as people's right to quality
health care
services.
Take action through schools, clubs, teams and organizations to promote better health for all, especially for the most vulnerable such as women and children.
You can also hold your government, local leaders and other decision-makers accountable to their commitments to improve people's access to health and
health care.
The Sustainable Development Goals aim to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all. As such,
the 17 SDGs and its associated 169 targets do not stand alone, but are are interconnected. The key to success on one
will involve tackling issues more commonly associated with another. If you are interested in supporting a cause
addressing to the goal {sdg.name}, you might also be interested in the related goals No Poverty, Decent Work And Economic Growth, Reduced Inequalities, Sustainable Cities And Communities, Life Below Water and Life On Land.