Throughout her career Ilona Kickbusch has been committed to issues of women´s health. She was active in and has published widely on the women´s health movement in German. She was one of founders of the women’s health centre in Konstanz, Germany.

While at the European Office of the WHO she launched a major European initiative of national women´s health reports "Women´s Health Counts". Her key interest remains to develop strategies for women´s empowerment.

In September 2015 Ilona Kickbusch was invited to attend the G7 women’s dialogue in Berlin hosted by Chancellor Merkel. The declaration of this dialogue can be accessed here. She was one of the founders of the Chapter Women in Global Health Germany 2017, www.womeningh.org/wgh-germany

She is on the board of Women in Global Health www.womeningh.org

2014/15 Twitter campaign highlights top women in global health

Her most recent initiative is to make visible women's contributions to global health. A twitter Campaign was launched to identify woman leaders - the first phase of this project has been published #wgh100, a second round now includes 300 women #wgh300, more here.

She has been a regular advisor to the path breaking women’s health initiatives in the City of Vienna.

Globalization, women and health in the 21st century

In the publication Globalization, women and health in the 21st century. (Editor: Ilona Kickbusch, Kari A. Hartwig, Justin M. List, Palgrave in 2006) she explored the interface of gender, globalization and health based on the work at a number of conferences and symposia.