WHO: Compassion and primary health care (24 January 2025)

Summary

The World Health Organization has released a new report, Compassion and primary health care, which explores the vital role compassion plays in primary health care (PHC). The document synthesises findings from a five-year exploration.

Compassion – characterised by awareness, empathy and action – is identified as a transformative force for primary health care, driving quality care and health system transformation. The document connects compassion to the WHO-UNICEF Operational Framework for Primary Health Care, describing its relevance across both strategic and operational levers. Drawing from insights gathered through twelve Global Health Compassion Rounds, it highlights the relationship between compassion and various healthcare themes.

This foundational resource provides actionable insights for health leaders and practitioners on how to harness compassion to improve population health. The report argues that compassion is not only essential to the core of primary health care but also serves as a catalyst for systemic change.

Content

The report outlines three strategic approaches to ensure compassion remains embedded at the heart of PHC efforts:

• Integrated health services Services designed and delivered with compassion address the needs of people. This requires compassion to be embedded in the full continuum of essential health services, from health promotion to disease prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and palliative care. Awareness of and empathy for human suffering across the life-course can drive action that optimises health services for individuals and populations. Integrating public health services and primary care enables compassion to guide decision-making and subsequent action that enhances overall population health, including in public health emergencies.
• Empowered people and communities Compassion enables people to see other people more fully, listen deeply and resonate with their humanity. From within this shared space of genuine connection and trust, co-developed community solutions and organisational policies can emerge in the health sector and beyond. Compassion empowers individuals, families and communities to optimise their health. Multisectoral policy and action Compassion demands collaboration across sectors to comprehensively address the health and well-being of the whole person and whole community. Whether in interdisciplinary partnership in a health system or allied efforts among multiple ministries, compassion urges people to work collectively and consistently for the well-being of all, to attend to suffering and to take action on broader determinants of health.