World Health Assembly

In January 2011, The Cochrane Collaboration became a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Official Relations with the World Health Organization (WHO) and was awarded a seat on the World Health Assembly, the WHO's decision-making body.

From 21st-26th May 2012, the 65th World Health Assembly (WHA) will be held in Geneva, Switzerland.

Attending the Assembly on behalf of the Collaboration will be Lisa Bero, Director of the San Francisco Branch of the US Cochrane Center; and Elizabeth Waters, Coordinating Editor of the Cochrane Public Health Review Group.

As an NGO, the Collaboration is permitted to make comments - known as 'interventions' - on WHA resolutions under the 'technical and health matters' agenda. Interventions must first be submitted to the WHO in writing and then presented verbally at the WHA. Resolutions are formal texts adopted by the WHO, indicating its position on particular topics and signalling its intent for policy development and action planning in those areas. By influencing the wording of resolutions, the Collaboration has the opportunity to promote evidence-based health care in WHO policy-setting.

Preparing for the 2012 World Health Assembly

In accordance with the Collaboration's traditions of collaboration and inclusiveness, we invite our contributors to help us draft the Collaboration's interventions on resolutions under the 'technical and health matters' agenda. In particular, we are looking for input on the following agenda items:

• Prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases
• Global burden of mental disorders and the need for a comprehensive, coordinated
  response from health and social sectors at the country level
• Social determinants of health
• Substandard/spurious/falsely-labelled/falsified/counterfeit medical products
• WHO’s response, and role as the health cluster lead, in meeting the growing demands of
  health in humanitarian emergencies

Comments on any of these items, or others included under the technical and health matters agenda, should be submitted on the dedicated discussion forum on the Cochrane Community site [Archie login required] by the end of your working day on Wednesday 16th May. Please focus your comments on how you would like to see WHO policy developed in these areas. If you do not have an Archie account, you can submit your comments by email to Lucie Binder at the Cochrane Operations Unit: lbinder@cochrane.org.

The final versions of the interventions will be posted here soon.