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The article is a tribute to Dr. Abdul-Hossein Tabatabai-Naini, the former Regional Director of the Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office (EMRO), on the occasion of WHO's 75th anniversary. It reports on his achievements, personality, and philosophy of medicine., (© 2024 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.)

As stated clearly in all editions of the WHO Laboratory Manual for the Examination and Processing of Human Semen, the goal of the manual is to meet the growing needs for the standardization of semen analysis procedures. With constant advances in andrology and reproductive medicine and the advent of sophisticated assisted reproductive technologies for the treatment of infertility, the manual has been continuously updated to meet the need for new, evidence-based, validated tests to not only measure semen and sperm variables but also to provide a functional assessment of spermatozoa. The sixth edition of the WHO manual, launched in 2021, can be freely downloaded from the WHO website, with the hope of gaining wide acceptance and utilization as the essential source of the latest, evidence-based information for laboratory procedures required for the assessment of male reproductive function and health., (Copyright © 2021 American Society for Reproductive Medicine. All rights reserved.)

The fifth edition of the World Health Organization (WHO) classification of soft tissue and bone tumours was published in May 2020. This 'Blue Book', which is also available digitally for the first time, incorporates an array of new information on these tumours, amassed in the 7 years since the previous edition. Major advances in molecular characterisation have driven further refinements in classification and the development of ancillary diagnostic tests, and have improved our understanding of disease pathogenesis. Several new entities are also included. This review summarises the main changes introduced in the 2020 WHO classification for each subcategory of soft tissue and bone tumours., (© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Within the framework of recent historiography about the role of the World Health Organization (WHO) in modernizing public health and the multifaceted concept of global health, this study addresses the impact of the WHO's "country programs" in Spain from the time it was admitted to this organization in 1951 to 1975. This research adopts a transnational historical perspective and emphasizes attention to the circulation of health knowledge, practices, and people, and focuses on the Spain-0001 and Spain-0025programs, their role in the development of virology in Spain, and the transformation of public health. Sources include historical archives (WHO, the Spanish National Health School), various WHO publications, the contemporary medical press, and a selection of the Spanish general press.

From its inception, in 1948, the World Health Organization made control of malaria a high priority. Early successes led many to believe that eradication was possible, although there were serious doubts concerning the continent of Africa. As evidence mounted that eradicating malaria was not a simple matter, the malaria eradication programme was downgraded to a unit in 1980. Revived interest in malaria followed the Roll Back Malaria Initiative adopted in 1998. This article presents an historical account of the globally changing ideas on control and elimination of the disease and argues that insufficient attention was paid to strengthening health services and specialized human resources.

A malaria-free world remains the vision of the global community. Malaria elimination within the territory of a country is a pathway to achieving the ultimate goal of eradication. Certification of malaria elimination in a country is the official recognition of this important achievement. The concepts of eradication and elimination, and criteria for certification of malaria elimination, have guided national programs in their efforts to achieve and maintain elimination. They have evolved from the experiences and setbacks of the global eradication program, and on the contemporaneous understanding of the concepts of achieving and maintaining elimination. WHO's certification has been successful, with the majority of certified countries remaining malaria free, but to operationalize the criterion for preventing re-establishment of transmission remains challenging., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Recently, there has been a prominent call in the history of medicine for greater engagement with disability perspectives. In this article, I suggest that critiques of the so-called medical model have been an important vehicle by which alternative narratives of disability entered the clinical arena. Historians of medicine have rarely engaged with the medical model beyond descriptive accounts of it. I argue that to more adequately address disability perspectives, historians of medicine must better historicize the medical model concept and critique, which has been drawn upon by physicians, activists, and others to advance particular perspectives on disability. My present contribution describes two distinct formulations of critique that originated in differing interest groups and characterized the medical model alternatively as insufficient and oppressive. I examine the World Health Organization's efforts to incorporate these distinctive medical model critiques during the development and revision of its International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities, and Handicaps.

The aim of this note is to introduce the report on the health system of Spain written in 1967 by the WHO expert on Public Health Administration, and retired professor of the University of Manchester, Prof. CF Brockington, I summarise along general lines the relationships established between Spain and the WHO, describe the role of consultants, give an outline of the character of this author and the political context of the time. I also describe the difficulties encountered with his recommendations, which can nevertheless be viewed as seminal contributions to the major changes that were to take place during the Spanish Democratic Transition. The full text of the Report, in Spanish, can be accessed in the online Appendix of this article., (Copyright © 2018 SESPAS. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.)

Despite not originating in Spain, the 1918 influenza pandemic is commonly known as the "Spanish flu"-a name that reflects a tendency in public health history to associate new infectious diseases with foreign nationals and foreign countries. Intentional or not, an effect of this naming convention is to communicate a causal relationship between foreign populations and the spread of infectious disease, potentially promoting irrational fear and stigma. I address two relevant issues to help contextualize these naming practices. First is whether, in an age of global hyperinterconnectedness, fear of the other is truly irrational or has a rational basis. The empirical literature assessing whether restricting global airline travel can mitigate the global spread of modern epidemics suggests that the role of travel may be overemphasized. Second is the persistence of xenophobic responses to infectious disease in the face of contrary evidence. To help explain this, I turn to the health communication literature. Scholars argue that promoting an association between foreigners and a particular epidemic can be a rhetorical strategy for either promoting fear or, alternatively, imparting a sense of safety to the public.

Objective: Brucellosis was one of the most important health problems in post-Civil War Spain and in subsequent years. The objective of the study was to reconstruct the first programs that the WHO set up in this country, to address this problem, between 1951 and 1972 and their main outcomes., Methods: On the basis of primary sources of diverse origin, especially unpublished reports on Spain from foreign experts, from the WHO Historical Archive, the contents related to the disease were analyzed, contextualizing them within the framework of both the history of Spanish Public Health during the period studied and the international public health strategies for the prevention and control of brucellosis between 1951 and 1972., Results: Spain 0001 (E1), Spain 0012 (E12) programs were located. The first of them (E1), dedicated to the problem of endemoepidemic diseases (brucellosis, rabies and Q fever), developed between 1952 and 1956, offered assistance in the work of control of these diseases carried out by public health laboratories. The second was preceded by visits of experts between 1956-1958 and formally started in 1969 and ended in 1972. This program was specifically devoted to the fight against brucellosis and included the start-up of laboratory and epidemiological work, the training of specialists, vaccination experiences in goats and sheep and the initiation of studies on immunizations in humans., Conclusions: The presence of consultants and experts from the WHO, from the highest scientific authority in the field of brucellosis such as Sandford Elberg or Martin Kaplan, was decisive in, at least, two aspects: first, to have an external view that would allow to know the reality of the Spanish health situation in the matter of the control of this zoonosis and, secondly, to start up and develop laboratory techniques and training of specialists with the aim of creating, at least, a center of reference for the preparation of vaccines, which the experts placed, ideally, in the National School of Health in Madrid.

For the World Health Organization (WHO), the 1978 Alma-Ata Declaration marked a move away from the disease-specific and technologically-focused programmes of the 1950s and 1960s towards a reimagined strategy to provide 'Health for All by the Year 2000'. This new approach was centred on primary health care, a vision based on acceptable methods and appropriate technologies, devised in collaboration with communities and dependent on their full participation. Since 1948, the WHO had used mass communications strategies to publicise its initiatives and shape public attitudes, and the policy shift in the 1970s required a new visual strategy. In this context, community health workers (CHWs) played a central role as key visual identifiers of Health for All. This article examines a period of picturing and public information work on the part of the WHO regarding CHWs. It sets out to understand how the visual politics of the WHO changed to accommodate PHC as a new priority programme from the 1970s onwards. The argument tracks attempts to define CHWs and examines the techniques employed by the WHO during the 1970s and early 1980s to promote the concept to different audiences around the world. It then moves to explore how the process was evaluated, as well as the difficulties in procuring fresh imagery. Finally, the article traces these representations through the 1980s, when community approaches came under sustained pressure from external and internal factors and imagery took on the supplementary role of defending the concept.

This article explores the programme of national health planning carried out in the 1960s in West and Central Africa by the World Health Organization (WHO), in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Health plans were intended as integral aspects of economic development planning in five newly independent countries: Gabon, Liberia, Mali, Niger and Sierra Leone. We begin by showing that this episode is treated only superficially in the existing WHO historiography, then introduce some relevant critical literature on the history of development planning. Next we outline the context for health planning, noting: the opportunities which independence from colonial control offered to international development agencies; the WHO's limited capacity in Africa; and its preliminary efforts to avoid imposing Western values or partisan views of health system organisation. Our analysis of the plans themselves suggests they lacked the necessary administrative and statistical capacity properly to gauge local needs, while the absence of significant financial resources meant that they proposed little more than augmentation of existing structures. By the late 1960s optimism gave way to disappointment as it became apparent that implementation had been minimal. We describe the ensuing conflict within WHO over programme evaluation and ongoing expenditure, which exposed differences of opinion between African and American officials over approaches to international health aid. We conclude with a discussion of how the plans set in train longer processes of development planning, and, perhaps less desirably, gave bureaucratic shape to the post-colonial state.

The World Health Organization's (WHO's) leadership challenges can be traced to its first decades of existence. Central to its governance and practice is regionalization: the division of its member countries into regions, each representing 1 geographical or cultural area. The particular composition of each region has varied over time-reflecting political divisions and especially decolonization. Currently, the 194 member countries belong to 6 regions: the Americas (35 countries), Europe (53 countries), the Eastern Mediterranean (21 countries), South-East Asia (11 countries), the Western Pacific (27 countries), and Africa (47 countries). The regions have considerable autonomy with their own leadership, budget, and priorities. This regional organization has been controversial since its beginnings in the first days of WHO, when representatives of the European countries believed that each country should have a direct relationship with the headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, whereas others (especially the United States) argued in favor of the regionalization plan. Over time, regional directors have inevitably challenged the WHO directors-general over their degree of autonomy, responsibilities and duties, budgets, and national composition; similar tensions have occurred within regions. This article traces the historical roots of these challenges.

This paper examines the relationship between 'world citizenship' and the new psychiatric research paradigm established by the World Health Organization in the early post-World War II period. Endorsing the humanitarian ideological concept of 'world citizenship', health professionals called for global rehabilitation initiatives to address the devastation after the war. The charm of world citizenship had not only provided theoretical grounds of international collaborative research into the psychopathology of psychiatric diseases, but also gave birth to the international psychiatric epidemiologic studies conducted by the World Health Organization. Themes explored in this paper include the global awareness of mental rehabilitation, the application of public health methods in psychiatry to improve mental health globally, the attempt by the WHO to conduct large-scale, cross-cultural studies relevant to mental health and the initial problems it faced., (© The Author(s) 2015.)

This paper grew out of a meeting organized in September 2014 in London on 'Re-imagining malaria'. The focus of that meeting was on malaria today; only afterwards did the idea emerge that re-imagining the past might serve as a useful way for guiding present re-thinking. Sub-Saharan Africa is the logical place for such a re-examination for, as argued in this paper, the approaches that emerged following the collapse of the global eradication campaign were available to WHO in the 1950s, but these were not pursued as Africa was not encouraged to seek solutions outside those being advocated for eradication elsewhere.

This essay draws attention to the role of the WHO in shaping research agendas in the biomedical sciences in the postwar era. It considers in particular the genetic studies of human populations that were pursued under the aegis of the WHO from the late 1950s to 1970s. The study provides insights into how human and medical genetics entered the agenda of the WHO. At the same time, the population studies become a focus for tracking changing notions of international relations, cooperation, and development and their impact on research in biology and medicine in the post-World War I era. After a brief discussion of the early history of the WHO and its position in Cold War politics, the essay considers the WHO program in radiation protection and heredity and how the genetic study of "vanishing" human populations and a world-wide genetic study of newborns fitted this broader agenda. It then considers in more detail the kind of support offered by the WHO for these projects. The essay highlights the role of single individuals in taking advantage of WHO support for pushing their research agendas while establishing a trend towards cooperative international projects in biology.

From November 1954 to November 1956, Canadian nurse Margaret Campbell Jackson was employed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and was stationed in Tehran, Iran, where she participated in the establishment of a Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Centre. The objective of the project, known as Iran 10, was twofold: to set up a health service for mothers and children and to initiate a field training program for Iranian physicians, nurses, and other health care providers. Drawing on 180 letters Jackson wrote to her family in Canada from Iran, this article analyzes the MCH Centre as a contact zone and considers the relationships Jackson developed with staff affiliated with the project. The Centre became a space of cross-cultural encounters, where locally and foreign-trained Iranian staff and expatriates mingled and shared working relationships. I argue that authority was negotiated and contested through interactions and associations that were often unequal and framed by notions of progress, modernization, race, and health. Personality also played an important role.

In the decades after World War II, the World Health Organization (WHO) played an important role in managing the process of stabilizing collections of variable blood samples as a fundamentally unstable, protean, and unfolding biomedical resource. In this system, known and as yet unknown constituents of blood were positioned as relevant to the work of multiple constituencies including human population geneticists, physical anthropologists, and immunologists. To facilitate serving these and other constituencies, it was crucial to standardize practices of collecting and preserving samples of blood from globally distributed human populations. The WHO achieved this by linking its administrative infrastructure-comprised of expert advisory groups and technical reports-to key laboratories, which served as sites for demonstrating and also for disseminating standards for working with variable blood samples. The practices that were articulated in making blood samples into a flexible resource contributes to emerging histories of global health that highlight the centrality of new institutions, like the WHO, new forms of expertise, like population genetics and serological epidemiology, and new kinds of research materials, like frozen blood., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Worldwide, more than 1 billion people use tobacco, resulting in about 6 million deaths per year. The tobacco industry's documented history of subverting control efforts required innovative approaches by WHO--led by Gro Harlem Brundtland--including invocation of its constitutional authority to develop treaties. In 2003, WHO member states adopted the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC). In the decade since, 177 countries have ratified and started to implement its full provisions. Success has been tempered by new challenges. Tobacco use has fallen in countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development but increased in low-income and middle-income countries, a result in no small part of illicit trade and cheap products from China and other unregulated state monopolies. This review of 50 years of policy development aimed at reducing the burden of disease attributable to tobacco reviews the origins and strategies used in forging the WHO FCTC, from the perspective of one who was there., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The Republic of Korea(ROK) and the World Health Organization(WHO) have done many projects successfully from 1949, in which the government of First Republic joined the WHO. However the relation between the ROK and the WHO have not been studied very much so far. The main purpose of this research, which could be done by the support of WHO, is connected with three questions. First research point would be "how could the ROK joined WHO in 1949 and what's the meaning of it? And the what's the difference in the process for the WHO between the ROK of 1949 and the DPRK(Democratic People's Republic of Korea) of 1973?" The first president of the ROK, Rhee Syngman, who had received his Ph. D.(about international politics) from Princeton University in 1910, was strongly interested in joining international institutes like UN, WHO. The ROK that could join WHO on 17 August 1949, with the approval of Assembly on 25 May 1949, was one of the founder members of the Western Pacific Region. By joining WHO, the ROK could get chance to increase the level of public health and its administration in 1950's. But the DPRK manage to became a member of WHO on 19 May 1973 and joined the South-East Asia Region. The joining of DPRK was influenced by the easing of the cold war after the Nixon Doctrine and the joining of the China(People's Republic of China). Second research point would be "What kind of roll did the WHO take in the First Republic?" Yet the public health administration of the First Republic that had been made in the period of US army military government was been strongly influenced by USA, the roll of WHO was also important in the 1950's. Last research point would be "What kind of the projects did the ROK and the WHO take part in during the period of he First Republic? How could evaluate the results?" The ROK and the WHO handled the projects including health services, communicable disease prevention and control, control of noncommunicable diseases, and protection of health. Specially for the efforts to prevent communicable disease, the WHO focused on leprosy, malaria, measles, smallpox, tuberculosis in 1950's. The First Republic could overcome the bad health condition after the Korea War successfully, supported by WHO.

In recent years, there has been a growing debate about what role foundations should play in global health governance generally, and particularly vis-à-vis the World Health Organization (WHO). Much of this discussion revolves around today's gargantuan philanthropy, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and its sway over the agenda and modus operandi of global health. Yet such pre-occupations are not new. The Rockefeller Foundation (RF), the unparalleled 20th century health philanthropy heavyweight, both profoundly shaped WHO and maintained long and complex relations with it, even as both institutions changed over time. This article examines the WHO-RF relationship from the 1940s to the 1960s, tracing its ebbs and flows, key moments, challenges, and quandaries, concluding with a reflection on the role of the Cold War in both fully institutionalizing the RF's dominant disease-control approach and limiting its smaller social medicine efforts, even as the RF's quotidian influence at WHO diminished., (Copyright © 2013 The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Health has been a deeply personal, professional and political dimension of Gro Harlem Brundtland's life. Her decision to study breast feeding while an MPH student at Harvard in 1964, or her desire to tackle tobacco being influenced by her father sending her as a 10-year old girl to buy his cigarettes at the local store, or her deeply personal family experience of mental ill health all led her to take actions on the global stage to address these and other issues that evidence showed would have global impact. Her impact on global health started with a commitment to make a difference in the lives of people, particularly those in greatest need., (Copyright © 2013 The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This article takes a historical perspective on the changing position of WHO in the global health architecture over the past two decades. From the early 1990s a number of weaknesses within the structure and governance of the World Health Organization were becoming apparent, as a rapidly changing post Cold War world placed more complex demands on the international organizations generally, but significantly so in the field of global health. Towards the end of that decade and during the first half of the next, WHO revitalized and played a crucial role in setting global health priorities. However, over the past decade, the organization has to some extent been bypassed for funding, and it lost some of its authority and its ability to set a global health agenda. The reasons for this decline are complex and multifaceted. Some of the main factors include WHO's inability to reform its core structure, the growing influence of non-governmental actors, a lack of coherence in the positions, priorities and funding decisions between the health ministries and the ministries overseeing development assistance in several donor member states, and the lack of strong leadership of the organization., (Copyright © 2013 The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The tension between managing episodic, acute, and deadly pandemics and the arduous path to ameliorating the chronic maladies and social conditions that kill many more people, but in far less dramatic ways, has always shaped the agenda and work of the World Health Organization. Yet the historical record amply demonstrates how international efforts to control infectious disease, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century and extending to the present, have dominated global health policies, regulations, agendas and budgets: often at the expense of addressing more chronic health and environmental concerns. How these challenges have affected present circumstances and created demands for an entirely new conception and execution of 21st century global health efforts is the focus of this paper., (Copyright © 2013 The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The authors report the contributions of the last six sanitary conferences from 1886 to 1926. All of them, from 1851 to 1926, were the first roots of WHO.

This article examines the 2008 World Health Organization/Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS controversy through original reports and media coverage. Analysis reveals that discourse rhetorically exonerates heterosexuals from HIV/AIDS while reifying homophobic and morally righteous ideology about HIV/AIDS and homosexuality. Discourses of "fraudulent science," "heterosexual absence," and reverse victimization destabilize meaning of HIV/AIDS and heterosexuality. "AIDS," "heterosexuality," and even victimhood and minority status were destabilized and resignified in a rhetoric that benefited from its status as science even as it rendered past science suspect as ideological.

This paper reviews the historical development of health professions' education in the Arab countries and highlights the role that the World Health Organization has played in the support of the health workforce. Challenges such as the migration of health professionals, the need for additional educational opportunities in public health and in the management of health services and the need to adapt education to address the needs of society are discussed. Efforts are needed to develop further the quality and relevance of education and to address the needs of the health systems and the welfare of communities. The production of research in cooperation with policy-makers to enhance decisions and policies based on evidence needs increased attention.

Background: The World Health Organization (WHO) released the fourth edition of Guidelines for Drinking-Water Quality in July 2011. In this edition, the 400-µg/L drinking-water guideline for manganese (Mn) was discontinued with the assertion that because "this health-based value is well above concentrations of manganese normally found in drinking water, it is not considered necessary to derive a formal guideline value.", Objective: In this commentary, we review the WHO guideline for Mn in drinking water--from its introduction in 1958 through its discontinuation in 2011., Methods: For the primary references, we used the WHO publications that documented the Mn guidelines. We used peer-reviewed journal articles, government reports, published conference proceedings, and theses to identify countries with drinking water or potential drinking-water supplies exceeding 400 µg/L Mn and peer-reviewed journal articles to summarize the health effects of Mn., Discussion: Drinking water or potential drinking-water supplies with Mn concentrations > 400 µg/L are found in a substantial number of countries worldwide. The drinking water of many tens of millions of people has Mn concentrations > 400 µg/L. Recent research on the health effects of Mn suggests that the earlier WHO guideline of 400 µg/L may have been too high to adequately protect public health., Conclusions: The toxic effects and geographic distribution of Mn in drinking-water supplies justify a reevaluation by the WHO of its decision to discontinue its drinking-water guideline for Mn.

The Special Programme of Research in Human Reproduction (HRP), co-sponsored by the UNDP, UNFPA, WHO, and the World Bank, is celebrating 40 years of activities with an expansion of its mandate and new co-sponsors. When it began, in 1972, the main focus was on evaluating the acceptability, effectiveness, and safety of existing fertility-regulating methods, as well as developing new, improved modalities for family planning. In 1994, HRP not only made major contributions to the Plan of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD); it also broadened its scope of work to include other aspects of health dealing with sexuality and reproduction, adding a specific perspective on gender issues and human rights. In 2002, HRP's mandate was once again broadened to include sexually transmitted infections and HIV/AIDS and in 2003 it was further expanded to research activities on preventing violence against women and its many dire health consequences. Today, the work of the Programme includes research on: the sexual and reproductive health of adolescents, women, and men; maternal and perinatal health; reproductive tract and sexually transmitted infections (including HIV/AIDS); family planning; infertility; unsafe abortion; sexual health; screening for cancer of the cervix in developing countries, and gender and reproductive rights. Additional activities by the Programme have included: fostering international cooperation in the field of human reproduction; the elaboration of WHO's first Global Reproductive Health Strategy; work leading to the inclusion of ICPD's goal 'reproductive health for all by 2015' into the Millennium Development Goal framework; the promotion of critical interagency statements on the public health, legal, and human rights implications of female genital mutilation and gender-biased sex selection. Finally, HRP has been involved in the creation of guidelines and tools, such as the 'Medical eligibility criteria for contraceptive use', the 'Global handbook for family planning providers', the 'Definition of core competencies in primary health care', and designing tools for operationalizing a human rights approach to sexual and reproductive health programmes., (Copyright © 2012 S. Karger AG, Basel.)

In the wake of the report of the World Health Organisation's Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, Closing the gap in a generation (Marmot 2008), this invited commentary considers the scope for geographical research on global health. We reflect on current work and note future possibilities, particularly those that take a critical perspective on the interplay of globalisation, security and health.

Background/aims: The HRP Special Programme (HRP) began addressing 'reproduction' problems (infertility) at the same time as 'fertility regulation' (contraception)., Methods: This report is based upon data collected from official HRP Scientific and Technical Reports., Results: In the 1970s, HRP supported research on human and nonhuman primate models to address the basic biology of reproduction. Importantly, however, it was the multicountry clinical research studies sponsored by HRP during the 1970s and 1980s which led to the identification of not only the large burden of disease but also global patterns of causation of infertility. The next decade saw the development of WHO guidelines and manuals for diagnosis, management, and treatment of infertile women and men, with HRP-sponsored operations research focused on adaptation within primary health care settings. Consensus consultations held during 2001 through 2011 resulted in recommendations to stakeholders, as well as the identification of barriers and inequities in access to infertility care services., Conclusion: With renewed focus on infertility through the current development of revised guidelines and manuals, and the desire to support critical clinical research protocols, including adaptation and implementation research for management and monitoring tools being developed through international partners, HRP will continue to support future success stories in family, maternal, child, and reproductive health., (Copyright © 2012 S. Karger AG, Basel.)

Promoting the health of Europeans in a rapidly changing world: a historical study of the implementation of World Health Organisation policies by the Nursing and Midwifery Unit, European Regional Office, 1970-2003 The World Health Organisation (WHO) was inaugurated in 1948. Formed in a period of post-war devastation, WHO aimed to develop and meet goals that would rebuild the health of shattered populations. The historical study reported here examined the work of the Nursing and Midwifery Unit (NMU) of WHO's European Regional Office during the later part of the twentieth century. The study examined archive sources lodged at the NMU archive. The sources included manuscripts relating to important NMU initiatives, reports and papers published by WHO, and a range of secondary sources. The study identified three main driving forces in the work of the NMU of the European Regional Office of WHO. One of the strongest of these was a drive to develop and promote the nursing profession within the countries of the European Region. The second was the promulgation and implementation of the positive public health strategies of WHO, particularly its '38 Targets for Health for All by the Year 2000'. The third focussed on securing equity across the European continent and on promoting the development of the nursing professions in poorer and less-developed countries. The study concludes that the nursing professions in European states grew in strength and influence, and that the health of populations improved throughout the continent between 1970 and 2003. It discusses the extent to which the role of the NMU in these advances may have been significant., (© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.)

Osteoporosis, a disease of bone loss associated with aging and estrogen loss, can be crippling but is 'silent' (symptomless) prior to bone fracture. Despite its disastrous health effects, high prevalence, and enormous associated health care costs, osteoporosis lacked a universally accepted definition until 1992. In the 1980s, the development of more accurate medical imaging technologies to measure bone density spurred the medical community's need and demand for a common definition. The medical community tried, and failed, to resolve these differing definitions several times at consensus conferences and through published articles. These experts finally accepted a standard definition at an international consensus conference convened by the World Health Organization in 1992. The construction of osteoporosis as a disease of quantifiable risk diagnosed by medical imaging machines reflects contemporary trends in medicine, including the quantification of disease, the risk factor model, medical disciplinary boundaries, and global standardization of medical knowledge., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The discovery of a novel influenza strain at Fort Dix, New Jersey, in 1976-dubbed Swine Flu-prompted differing responses from national and international health organizations. The United States crafted a vaccination campaign to inoculate every citizen; conversely, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended a 'wait and see' policy. An examination of the WHO conference that issued the influenza policy reveals the decision was driven by the limits of its member states' ability to produce inactivated vaccine and concern over the premature use of unstable live-virus vaccines. The WHO recommendation's reliance upon an uneven surveillance system would have replicated the 1957 and 1968 vaccination failures if a pandemic had appeared.

After the economic stagnation of the 1930s and World War II the water-hygiene had to revive. Besides basic research for large projects as the 3rd Viennese water-conduct, the Danube hydroelectric power station in Hainburg and the Marchfeldkanal new fields were opened. The evidence of fecal spring-water contamination by determination of the spectral-absorption-coefficients avoids the delay by bacterial cultivation and enables immediate satellite-transmission to central stations for turning-off the afflux. Determination of the origin (human and ruminant) of isolated E. coli by Real-time-PCR indicates necessities for sanitation. Investigation on UV-water-disinfection, considering also the formation of carcinogenic and genotoxic compounds, resulted in the only European national UV-norm and the establishment of one of the wordwide four testing institutions of UV-water-disinfection. The department for water-hygiene of the Medical University of Vienna carries out specific duties in various national committees of public health importance as well as in collaboration with EU, WHO, ISO and other international commissions.

Summary: Breastfeeding is considered to be the key variable for infant health. Consequently, UNICEF and the World Health Organization promote the beginning of breastfeeding within the first hour after birth and recommend to exclusively breastfeed the infant during the first six months. The origins of these modern breastfeeding campaigns can be traced back to the beginning of the twentieth century. Whereas high infant mortality rates traditionally were considered to be a matter of fate, declining birth rates towards the end of the nineteenth century raised fears about the nation's future and led to the emergence of an increasing infant welfare movement in Imperial Germany. As low breastfeeding rates were identified as a key factor behind the high infant mortality rates, the main objective of the infant care movement was to increase breastfeeding. The paper, therefore, focuses on medical breastfeeding recommendations and the attempts to popularize breastfeeding. At first, a sketch of medical doctrines will be presented, followed by a short survey of popular parental guidelines. Finally, two famous manuals of infant raising from the early twentieth century will be analysed in more detail. On the whole, the paper covers the period from the beginnings of social paediatrics at the beginning of the 20th century, the nutrition recommendations embedded into Nazi ideology during the Third Reich, until the declining breastfeeding ratios and the "feeding on demand"-movement in the 1970s as well as the ideological differences between West and East Germany during the Cold War.

The classification of brain tumors has undergone numerous changes over the past half century. The World Health Organization has played a key role in the effort. Four versions of its Classification of Tumours of the Central Nervous System have been published. The present work chronicles their progress, placing emphasis on the historical context of the earliest effort.