“Health for All” Forty Years On
In September 1978, the international community adopted the Declaration of Alma-Ata, one of the most important global agreements ever reached in the effort to achieve universal health coverage. Although not all of the declaration's goals have been achieved, the vision it articulated remains as relevant as ever.
GENEVA – Forty years ago last month, thousands of delegates from 134 countries gathered in Kazakhstan, then a part of the former Soviet Union, to adopt the Declaration of Alma-Ata. This landmark agreement committed the world to expanding health access, and the principles it enshrined in a mere three pages continue to have a profound effect on the field of public health.