World Health Worker Week: A Global Call to Invest in Health Workers

By Abbey Savin

Each year during the first week of April, the Frontline Health Workers Coalition – hosted by IntraHealth International, a Global Communities Partner – leads World Health Worker Week (WHWWeek), a powerful platform for collective advocacy.

The campaign highlights the critical importance of sustained leadership and long-term investment in the health workforce to achieve resilient health systems and drive economic and development progress. The Coalition mobilizes civil society, multilateral institutions, the private sector, governments and other advocates to call for increased commitments to building a well-supported, effective health workforce. Over the past two years, WHWWeek has reached a global audience of 121 million across more than 34 countries.

This year’s campaign, “Health Workers, the Heart of Health,” centered on four driving themes: strengthen, invest in, protect, and value the health workforce.

World Health Worker Week engaged leading global actors including the World Health Organization, the UN Foundation, The Global Fund, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and numerous national departments of health. This year’s campaign was supported by a robust roster of sponsors and partners: Johnson & Johnson, Smile Train, Global Communities, Project HOPE, Living Goods, CARE, CMMB, Jhpiego, Pathfinder International, Seed Global Health, AlignMNH, FIGS, European Cancer Organisation, Operation Smile, and the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth. Contributors took to social media with program features, health worker interviews, blog posts, photos and individual testimonies.

2025 Campaign Highlights

Landing an op-ed in Newsweek.

“Improving the Global Health Workforce Is a Bipartisan Imperative” was co-authored by Tina Flores, Director of the Frontline Health Workers Coalition, Vanessa Kerry, CEO of Seed Global Health and WHO Special Envoy for Climate Change and Health, and Rabih Torbay, President and CEO of Project HOPE. The article underscores the transformative potential of this pivotal moment in global health, and demands bipartisan collaboration in efforts to shift strategies and funding mechanisms for the global health workforce.

Expanding reach despite global challenges.

Amid decreases in funding, human resource constraints, and restrictions on communication and advocacy opportunities, the Coalition dramatically expanded its scope of outreach for this year’s campaign. The team reached out to more than 300 new organizations, stakeholders and influencers, coordinated closely with multilateral agencies and governments, and redesigned the campaign toolkit to be more accessible – resulting in more than 1,000 downloads.

Driving momentum in the non-communicable disease (NCD) space.

The Coalition leveraged the campaign to strengthen its influence in the NCD space in the lead-up to September’s UN High-Level Meeting. The Coalition helped coordinate the launch of the NCD Alliance’s new report on the NCD health workforce, and partnered with the European Cancer Organisation to release a new cancer-specific advocacy toolkit.

Inspiring future leaders in global health.

Coalition Director Tina Flores delivered a keynote address at Dartmouth College, emphasizing the importance of evidence, engagement and activation in navigating the advocacy space in today’s climate.

Raising our shared voice for the cause of health workers everywhere.

At its core, WHWWeek amplifies the call for increased investment in all cadres of the health workforce. With engagement from millions of global advocates, the campaign drives forward the prioritization of human resources for health in global policies, commitments and technical agendas.

To learn more about WHWWeek or the Coalition’s work, reach out to [email protected].