Article of the month December

For the publication of the month December, the website committee selected an article that is a bit unusual in this series, but it relates to a very important landmark of the dementia movement: Global action plan on the public health response to dementia 2017–2025. The World Health Organization (WHO) has adopted a Global Action Plan on Dementia in May 2017 and it is now published in a more accessible document, see here.

http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/259615/1/9789241513487-eng.pdf?ua=1

The plan includes actions for member states (all 194 countries that are member of WHO), WHO secretariat and regional and national offices as well as other stakeholders like Alzheimer associations and academic institutes. A key role for WHO is the Global Dementia Observatory that was launched this month and should serve as a data resource on prevalence, incidence and mortality on dementia and information about national plans and policies.

Many people have campaigned for dementia to become a global health priority. This WHO plan and Observatory are the result of that advocacy efforts. Interdem can contribute by promoting psycho-social research for dementia and support the work of WHO.

Reference: Global action plan on the public health response to dementia 2017–2025. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2017. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.

The press release: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2017/dementia-triple-affected/en/