The Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, Transforming our World, includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) with 169 targets, established and agreed by the United Nations Member States in September 2015. SDG-3, "Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages", makes explicit the relevance of health as a central dimension of sustainable development.
SDG-3 consists of 13 targets and 27 health indicators, focusing on a broad scope of the technical work carried out by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) with its Member States. A fundamental aspect of the Agenda 2030 is the promise of "leaving no one behind" on the road to sustainability and resilience proposed by the SDGs. In order to effectively "leave no one behind" in the transformative actions to be taken on population health in the framework of SDG-3 and its targets, it is essential not only to monitor national averages, but also social inequalities in the distribution of health.
This Supplement of the Pan American Journal of Public Health presents regional, national, and sub-national experiences and proposals for monitoring the SDG-3 indicators framework with an equity approach in order to identify good practices, disseminate successful experiences, inform decision-making in favor of health equity, and strengthen accountability on the promise of leaving no one behind in improving population health.
The Journal appreciates the contribution of the Every Woman Every Child Initiative for Latin America and the Caribbean (EWEC-LAC) for its financial and programmatic support, including the technical work at the country level to produce national reports and some of the articles published in this supplement.
Access to resources and tools for action on SDG-3: https://www3.paho.org/ods3/en/home/