About the WFC
About us
The World Federation of Chiropractic (WFC) was established at the World Chiropractic Congress in Sydney, Australia in 1988. Members of the World Federation of Chiropractic are national associations of chiropractors from over 90 countries in 7 world regions. The WFC currently represents its members and the chiropractic profession to the international community and is a non-state actor in official relations with the World Health Organization (WHO). For more information visit this page.
Its goals, found in Article 6 of the original Articles, state:
- Acting with national and international organizations to provide information and other assistance in the fields of chiropractic and world health;
- Promoting uniform high standards of chiropractic education, research and practice;
- Developing an informed public opinion among all peoples with respect to chiropractic; and
- Advancing the chiropractic profession and protecting the character and status of the profession.
Organizational Structure
Bylaws
The Bylaws of the WFC can be viewed in their entirety here
Assembly
Authority for all policy and other major decisions is vested in WFC Constituent Member national associations meeting in Assembly, convened annually.
Board of directors
The affairs of the WFC are directed by a Board of Directors elected or appointed for a term of three years from seven world regions - Africa, Asia, Eastern Mediterranean, Europe, Latin America, North America, and the Pacific. The Board meets either electronically or in person four times annually.
Executive committee
Daily operations are managed by an Executive Committee elected by the Board, and the Secretary-General, who manages secretariat at its permanent office located in Toronto, Canada. The Executive Committee meets regularly by teleconference and in person as required.
Congress
Held every two years, the WFC Congress, is preceded by an Assembly (business meeting of members). The Congress comprises academic sessions and the chiropractic profession's leading scientific meeting. Invited papers and research abstracts of the Congress are available in written proceedings and/or electronic versions. Award-winning original research papers are published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics (JMPT) and other academic journals.
Past Congresses have been in Toronto (1991), London (1993), Washington DC (1995), Tokyo (1997), Auckland (1999), Paris (2001), Orlando, Florida (2003), Sydney, Australia (2005), Vilamoura, Portugal (2007), Montreal, Canada (2009), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2011), Durban, South Africa (2013), Athens, Greece (2015), Washington, DC (2017) and Berlin, Germany (2019), Virtual Event (2021)* and Gold Coast, Australia (2023).
*The 16th Biennial Congress in Tokyo, Japan (2021) was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Full membership
Members of the World Federation of Chiropractic (WFC) are national associations of chiropractors from over 90 countries in 7 world regions. Members must be broadly representative of the chiropractic profession in any given country and are required to limit their voting membership to chiropractors (chiropractic students are considered chiropractors for this purpose).
Membership of the WFC confers both rights and responsibilities, which are set out here.
Other than Founding Members of the WFC, there shall only be one Member per country.
The WFC welcomes applications for membership from national chiropractic associations in countries not currently represented whose members are graduates of internationally-recognised chiropractic educational programs.
View contact information on each association or country here.
Affiliations
The WFC is in official relations with the World Health Organization (WHO) as a non-state actor. It is a founding member of the World Rehabilitation Alliance (WRA) and Council of International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS). It also has affiliations with many other national and international organizations.