How to Cite the WHO in APA

This article was co-authored by Cara Barker, MA. Cara Barker is an Assistant Professor and Research and Instruction Librarian at Hunter Library at Western Carolina University. She received her Masters in Library and Information Sciences from the University of Washington in 2014. She has over 16 years of experience working with libraries across the United States.

This article has been viewed 433,169 times.

Creating citations can be confusing. Where does that period go? What if you can't find an author's name? It's natural to have questions about citations, but you just need to follow a basic formula. In the case of the World Health Organization, the organization's name acts as the author, and you move on from there. Don't forget to create an in-text citation as well.

Write “World Health Organization” followed by a period. Then, add the date the report was published or updated in parentheses, like (Year, Month Day). Write the title of the report in italics. Then, add the website or the publication location.

Sample Citations

Citing a Web Page or Report from the WHO

• The first part of your reference looks like this:
  • World Health Organization.

  

  • It will look like this:
    • World Health Organization. (2020).
    • World Health Organization. (2020, September 22).
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    • When capitalizing the title of the report, use sentence capitalization, meaning you only capitalize the first word and proper nouns.
    • Your citation now looks like this:
      • World Health Organization. (2020, September 22). "Tobacco responsible for 20% of deaths from coronary heart disease."

      

      • Your citation will look like this:
        • World Health Organization. (2020, September 22). "Tobacco responsible for 20% of deaths from coronary heart disease." Retrieved from https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/22-09-2020-tobacco-responsible-for-20-of-deaths-from-coronary-heart-disease

        

        • The citation will look like this one:
          • World Health Organization. (2011, January 5). A report about health. Health City, Texas: Author.
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          Making an In-Text Citation

          

          • If you're incorporating the organization name into the sentence, it will look like this so far:
            • According to the World Health Organization (WHO;
            • The abbreviation in brackets tells the reader you'll use the abbreviation WHO throughout the rest of the article.
            • According to a recent report, health objectives are falling (World Health Organization [WHO],

            

            • You'll just use "WHO":
              • According to the WHO (
              • According to the report, the main cause is a rise in infectious disease (WHO,

              

              • Your first citation within a sentence will look like this:
                • According to the World Health Organization (WHO; 2011),
                • According to a recent report, health objectives are falling (World Health Organization [WHO], 2011).
                • According to the WHO (2011),
                • According to the report, the main cause is a rise in infectious disease (WHO, 2011).

                

                • For instance, you'd add the page number like this:
                  • According to WHO (2011), "infectious disease is a widespread problem" (p. 63).
                  • The report stated the following: "Infectious disease is a widespread problem" (WHO, 2011, p. 63).
                  • According to WHO (2011), "infectious disease is a widespread problem" (para. 30).
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                  Community Q&A

                  If the report is not about a particular city or country but a global report, then what do I write in the location?

                  Top Answerer

                  Use the location of the organisation that produced the report. If you cannot tell which branch of an organisation produced the report, cite the location of that organisation's headquarters.

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                  How do I reference a report written by an organization (no author) in text? Do I use the organization's name or simply the title of the report?

                  Community Answer

                  The organization name is preferable. If this creates confusion due to multiple works by the same organization, the title of the report in italics or quotes is suitable depending on publication type.

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                  For the in-text citation is (World Health Organization [WHO], 2011) APA 6th or APA 7th? Community Answer

                  Including the abbreviation of an organization's acronym within the in-text citation is not necessary per the APA 7th edition.

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                  1. ↑https://lib.lavc.edu/c.php?g=1038294&p=7528987
                  2. ↑https://lib.lavc.edu/c.php?g=1038294&p=7528987
                  3. ↑https://lib.lavc.edu/c.php?g=1038294&p=7528987
                  4. ↑https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_other_print_sources.html
                  5. ↑https://guides.centralpenn.edu/APA7th/intext
                  6. ↑https://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/abbreviations/
                  7. ↑https://guides.zsr.wfu.edu/c.php?g=1014307&p=7346635
                  8. ↑https://guides.zsr.wfu.edu/c.php?g=1014307&p=7346635
                  9. ↑https://guides.zsr.wfu.edu/c.php?g=1014307&p=7346635

                  About This Article

                  Co-authored by: Research & Instruction Librarian

                  This article was co-authored by Cara Barker, MA. Cara Barker is an Assistant Professor and Research and Instruction Librarian at Hunter Library at Western Carolina University. She received her Masters in Library and Information Sciences from the University of Washington in 2014. She has over 16 years of experience working with libraries across the United States. This article has been viewed 433,169 times.

                  72 votes - 74% Co-authors: 7 Updated: May 1, 2024 Views: 433,169 Categories: APA Style | Citation

                  To cite a web page or report from the WHO in APA format, start with "World Health Organization" as the author and follow it with a period. Next, write down the year or the year, month, and day the piece was published in parentheses and put a period at the end. Then, include the title of the report in italics, followed by a period. If you have a link to a website, write "Retrieved from" and add the link. Otherwise, end your citation with the location of the publication, using the city and state. For more advice from our Literary co-author, including how to cite the WHO in an in-text citation, scroll down!