About Health in the Americas
One of the core functions of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is “monitoring the health situation and assessing health trends” in the countries and territories of the Region of the Americas. PAHO’s flagship publication, Health in the Americas, responds to this mandate, examining health conditions, trends, and challenges across the Region.
Passed in 1953, Resolution CD7.R23 of the 7th Directing Council of PAHO required all countries and territories to prepare four-year reports on health conditions, with a focus on health statistics. Over the years, the early compilation of these country reports became what is now known as Health in the Americas, which has been published periodically since 1954. While it originally consisted of compiled data, it has evolved into a key reference publication that brings together current knowledge on public health issues and related challenges, along with the guidance needed to address them.
Health in the Americas aims to cover and raise awareness of important public health issues in an increasingly timely manner while serving as a platform with a close focus on regionally significant issues. This edition, Health in the Americas 2026: Prioritizing avertable disease burden to maximize impact, examines how the Region’s health loss is evolving in magnitude, composition, distribution, and potential avertability. It also provides guidance on how countries can translate this evidence into explicit priorities and implementable service bundles within integrated health service delivery networks, supported by stronger stewardship and governance for health impact.
The publication is supported by the Health in the Americas virtual platform, which offers interactive resources for data analysis and enables comparison of information disaggregated by subregions and countries. Together, the report and the portal are designed to support decision-makers, technical teams, partners, and the broader public health community as they shape the post-2030 health agenda for the Region of the Americas.