About us

Who we are

The Network: Towards Unity For Health (The Network: TUFH) is a global network of individuals, institutions and organisations committed to improving the health of the people and their communities. With its longstanding history of over thirty years, The Network: TUFH has played an important role in fostering community-oriented innovations, leading to curriculum reforms in education institutions around the globe.

In recent years it became apparent that to improve community health, innovations in health professions education would have to be linked with complementary innovations in health services delivery and health policy development. To do so, The Network: TUFH promotes collaboration between different health and community stakeholders, such as health professionals, health managers, policy makers, the communities themselves, but also with other sectors of society such as business, education, government and grassroots organisations.

The Network: TUFH is an Non-Governmental Organization, in official relationship with the World Health Organization.

What we aim for

In Education
To promote the creation of curricula for the education of health personnel in relation to the priority health needs of the community (e.g. community-oriented education) and to develop educational methods that enable students to concentrate on the acquisition of knowledge, skills and attitudes, relevant in that context (e.g. community-based education, problem-based learning).

In Health Services
To establish collaboration by educational institutions for health with communities, health services and related sectors in order to promote the development of model health systems and to promote their suitability for community-based basics, postgraduate and continuing education. 

In Research
To focus research on the identification and alleviation of priority health problems of the community and on the effectiveness of related health services.

How to do this

• Create partnerships between academic health professions institutions and all sorts of stakeholders (communities, health services, health care providers and their professional organisations,and other sectors affecting health)
• Act locally and internationally
• Share expertise to promote change and change processes