Definition of World Health Organization

World Health Organization: An agency of the United Nations established in 1948 to further international cooperation in improving health conditions.

Although the World Health Organization inherited specific tasks relating to epidemic control, quarantine measures, and drug standardization from the Health Organization of the League of Nations (that was set up in 1923)

And from the International Office of Public Health at Paris (established in 1909), the World Health Organization was given a broad mandate under its constitution to promote the attainment of "the highest possible level of health" by all people.

WHO defines health positively as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."

The World Health Organization is abbreviated and commonly referred to as WHO. (In French, another official language at the UN, it is OMS which stands for Organisation Mondiale de la Sante.)

WHO has administrative headquarters in Geneva. It operates through three principal organs: the World Health Assembly, which meets annually as the general policy-making body; an Executive Board of health specialists elected for three-year terms by the assembly; and a Secretariat, which has regional offices and field staff throughout the world.

The organization is financed primarily from annual contributions made by member governments on the basis of relative ability to pay. In addition, after 1951, WHO was allocated substantial resources from the expanded technical-assistance program of the UN.