About us

The Division of Health Promotion, Disease Prevention and Control (DPC) aims to support Member States in achieving healthier populations, disease prevention and control through integrated, evidence-based, and equity-focused public health actions. The Division’s overarching strategic objective is to reduce the burden of communicable diseases, noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), and mental health issues; improve maternal, child, newborn, and adolescent health; and address the broader determinants of health through multisectoral collaboration and life-course approaches.

In this regard, the Division works to:

• Promote health and prevent disease through effective policies, health promotion, and community engagement.
• Strengthen national capacities for surveillance, prevention, control, and elimination of communicable and noncommunicable diseases.
• Promote maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health and well-being through integrated continuum-of-care interventions across the life course.
• Improve nutrition and ensure food safety by strengthening policies, systems, and multisectoral actions that promote safe, nutritious and healthy food systems.
• Promote mental health and address substance abuse through integrated and culturally appropriate interventions.
• Tackle social determinants of health, including gender, equity, human rights, migration, and promote healthy settings.
• Support countries in achieving universal health coverage and resilient health systems through integrated service delivery and primary health care.

These objectives align with WHO’s Fourteenth General Program of Work (GPW14) and the Western Pacific Region’s strategic vision Weaving Health for Families, Communities and Societies in the Western Pacific Region (2025–2029).

Working with Member States on related strategic, policy, and technical matters, the Division is comprised of the following specific groups:

• Healthier populations (Health Promotion and Policy Unit)  
• Nutrition and food safety (Nutrition and Food Safety Unit) 
• Social determinants and healthy settings (Social Determinants and Healthy Settings Unit) 
• Noncommunicable diseases and mental health (Noncommunicable Diseases Unit and Mental Health and Substance Abuse Unit) 
• Communicable diseases (Accelerated Communicable Disease Control Unit) 
• Vaccine-preventable diseases and maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (Vaccine-Preventable Diseases and Immunization Unit and Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health Team) 

Supporting these programme areas are cross-cutting teams under the DPC Director’s Office:

• Laboratory and Health Intelligence Team (LIT)
• Mekong Malaria Elimination Programme (MME)
• Communication for Health Team (C4H)