This year, the theme of World Health Day is “My Health, My Right,” and the World Health Organization celebrates 76 years since its establishment. The theme for 2024 was chosen with the aim of advocating for the right of individuals everywhere to have access to quality healthcare services, education, and information in the field, as well as safe drinking water, good nutrition, quality housing, decent working conditions, and freedom from discrimination.
Every year, on April 7th, World Health Day is celebrated. On this day, emphasis is placed on ensuring access to healthcare services for all individuals, as well as educating consumers about their rights concerning their own health.
On World Health Day, InfoCons provides consumers with the European InfoCons App. With this app, consumers can choose for themselves what they eat, by simply scanning the barcodes of products. This way, everyone can access esential information, in their preffered language, such as:
- Scanning the barcodes of food products to find out the ingredients, number and type of food additives, allergens, sugar content, salt, and calories.
- Customizing the app for those with specific health problems and special dietary needs by setting the quantity of salt, sugar, numeric and typological additives.
- Calculator where the amount of product consumed can be entered to instantly find out: the amount of salt and sugar, the number of calories, and the sports activities needed to burn those calories (walking, running, and cycling).
- Saving the scanned product in the “Saved Products” section, allowing consumers to create their own shopping list, daily/weekly menu, and recipes.
- From the “Saved Products” section, consumers can find out the total number of additives, as well as the total amount of sugar and salt in the consumed products.
- Real-time alerts for food and non-food products at the European Union level.
- Dictionary of terminology in the field of consumer protection, environment, banking, finance, labor, insurance, energy, etc.
The InfoCons App is a useful and free tool that can be used in any of the 33 languages it is available in and can be downloaded from the following stores: App Store, Google Play, and App Gallery.
World Health Day is celebrated every year on April 7th, starting from 1948, being an opportunity for the entire population to highlight priority public health issues globally. This celebration contributes to increasing awareness among consumers about moving towards a healthy lifestyle based on balanced nutrition, especially from the perspective of accelerated growth, both globally and in Europe. According to statistics from recent years, there are numerous health risk factors, such as:
- Approximately 46% of all deaths recorded in Romania in 2019 could be attributed to behavioral risk factors, such as tobacco use, food risks, alcohol consumption, and low physical activity.
- The percentage of deaths caused by non-communicable diseases has increased to nearly three-quarters of all deaths and is projected to reach approximately 86% globally by 2048.
- Total health expenditures per capita in Romania, at 1,663 EUR, were less than half the EU average in 2021.
- In 2022, health expenditures accounted for 6.5% of GDP in Romania, of which almost 80% came from public sources.
- According to EU-SILC data, unmet healthcare needs in Romania (4.9% of the population) were more than twice the EU average (2.2%) in 2022.
- Almost 1 billion people were living with obesity in 2020. That is 1 in 7 people. 1.9 billion people worldwide will live with obesity in 2035, nearly 1/4 of the population.
- The rate of overweight among adolescents has steadily increased over the past two decades, with one in four 15-year-olds self-reporting as overweight in 2022, which is above the EU average.
- In 2022, Romania expected over 100,000 new cancer cases. The main types of cancer estimated among men were prostate cancer (20%), lung cancer (15%), and colorectal cancer (15%), while among women, breast cancer would be the main type of cancer (28%), followed by colorectal cancer (12%) and cervical cancer (8%).
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The World Health Organization has identified 140 countries that recognize health as a fundamental and constitutional right, but many countries still have problems in this area. In 2021, 4.5 billion people (more than half of the world’s population) were not fully covered by essential health services.
On the occasion of World Health Day, InfoCons extends its warmest congratulations to all relevant institutions in Romania for their outstanding work and wishes them continued success at high standards!