Gro Harlem Brundtland
30 quotes
Biography
Gro Harlem Brundtland is a Norwegian former physician and politician of the Labour Party, who served three terms as the prime minister of Norway, as the leader of her party from 1981 to 1992, and as the director-general of the World Health Organization from 1998 to 2003. She is also known for having chaired the Brundtland Commission which presented the Brundtland Report on sustainable development.
"Det er typisk norsk å være god."
"[<nowiki/>20th Century has been called] the century of extremes, [...] in which human vices reached unfathomable depths. [She notes that it has been] a century of great progress [and in some places of] unprecedented economic growth. [At the same time, however, poor urban areas face a bleak future of] overcrowding and a disease pattern linked to poverty and an unhealthy environment."
"Tobacco is a communicated disease – communicated through marketing."
"The global toll of mental illness and neurological disorders is staggering."
"Nurses, as the key health professionals, are in a unique position to act as powerful advocates for a healthy planet. [...] As nurses and midwives already constitute up to 80% of the qualified health workforce in most national health systems, they represent a potentially powerful force for bringing about the necessary changes to meet the needs of Health for All in the 21st century. Indeed, their contribution to health services covers the whole spectrum of health care [...] It is clear that nurses are the backbone of most health care teams."
"We have an opportunity to launch a massive effort against infectious diseases."
"Today osteoporosis affects more than 75 million people in the United States, Europe and Japan and causes more than 2.3 million fractures in the USA and Europe alone."
"A safe and nutritionally adequate diet is a basic individual right and an essential condition for sustainable development, especially in developing countries."
"Such lifestyle factors such as cigarette smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, little physical activity and low dietary calcium intake are risk factors for osteoporosis as well as for many other non-communicable diseases."
"We are also in the process of defining how best to work together with food and other companies to address diet and physical activity factors in order to prevent chronic diseases."
"You cannot achieve environmental security and human development without addressing the basic issues of health and nutrition."
"More than ever before, there is a global understanding that long-term social, economic, and environmental development would be impossible without healthy families, communities, and countries."
"Investing in health will produce enormous benefits."
"Contaminated food is a major cause of diarrhea, substantially contributing to malnutrition and killing about 2.2 million people each year, most of them children."
"The development of the food industry for both domestic and export markets relies on a regulatory framework that both protects the consumer and assures fair trading practices in food."
"We are also in the process of defining how best to work together with food and other companies to address diet and physical activity factors in order to prevent chronic diseases."
"The dual scourge of hunger and malnutrition will be truly vanquished not only when granaries are full, but also when people's basic health needs are met and women are given their rightful role in societies."
"Investing in health will produce enormous benefits."
"You cannot achieve environmental security and human development without addressing the basic issues of health and nutrition."
"During my nearly five years as director-general of WHO, high-level policymakers have increasingly recognized that health is central to sustainable development."
"Health is the core of human development."
"Intervention for the prevention and control of osteoporosis should comprise a combination of legislative action, educational measures, health service activities, media coverage, and individual counselling to initiate changes in behaviour."
"Since the reduction of risk factors is the scientific basis for primary prevention, the World Health Organization promotes the development of an integrated strategy for prevention of several diseases, rather than focusing on individual ones."
"That the AIDS pandemic is threatening sustainable development in Africa only reinforces the reality that health is at the center of sustainable development."
"Women's health is one of WHO's highest priorities."