Role of health professions academia in initiating, promoting and facilitating health-related initiatives of the sustainable developmental goals of the United Nations, 2023

During the year of India's presidency of the G-20 group from 2022 to 2023, the United Nations released in September 2023, a declaration, consisting of 17 sustainable developmental goals for the world that need to be achieved by 2030. Three of these goals are also relevant for the healthcare profession since they pertain to the health of the community. This document should be a stimulus and motivator for the health professions academia, to visualise new roles for themselves, inside and outside the classroom and to reflect on their roles in achieving the health-related goals of this movement. The 3 goals pertinent to health relate to (i) health and well-being, (ii) education and (iii) innovations. This paper focuses on the role teachers of the health profession play in initiating, facilitating and stimulating the process towards these goals both by their actions within the classroom to improve quality of the outgoing graduate and outside the classroom in facilitating access to good health and health-related innovations which can take healthcare to the doorsteps of the community. In addition, their role lies in influencing policy towards this goal so that the target as specified by the declaration can be achieved by 2047, if not, by 2030.