Population Health USRG: Mind the gap, EUPHA’s 7th European Public Health Conference
by Frances Clarke
The European Public Health Association’s 7th European Public Health Conference will be held in Glasgow this year from 19 to 22 November.
The following speakers are confirmed as either keynote speakers, panellists or moderators:
• Raj Bhopal, UK
• Vesna Bjegovic-Mikanovic, ASPHER (moderator)
• Marine Buissonniere, OSI
• Simon Capewell, UK
• Josep Figueras, European Observatory (moderator)
• Anders Foldspang, Denmark (panelist)
• Abdul Ghaffar, WHO
• Zsuzsana Jakab, WHO Europe
• Alastair Leyland, Chair of the 7th European Public Health Conference
• Johan Mackenbach, The Netherlands
• Jose Martin-Moreno, Spain (moderator)
• Margaret McCartney, UK
• Martin McKee, UK (moderator)
• Jacqueline Müller-Nordhorn, Germany (panelist)
• Iveta Nagyova, Slovakia (panelist)
• Walter Ricciardi, EUPHA
• Carlo Signorelli, Chair of the 8th European Public Health Conference 2015
• Marc Sprenger, ECDC
• Louise Stjernberg, Sweden (panelist)
• Aura Timen, The Netherlands (panelist)
Abstract and workshop submissions
Submissions are open
until May 1st at http://www.eupha.org/site/upcoming_conference.php?conference_page=398
This is a great opportunity to present your work to the largest public health audience in Europe. The EUPHA website www.eupha.org/glasgow2014 has regularly updated information.
Five years into Work Futures
by Josephine Corsi via Work Thought Blog
We established the Work Futures Research Centre in December 2008 with four co-directors: Professor Susan Halford, Professor Pauline Leonard, Professor Alison Fuller, and Professor Catherine Pope. Originally supported by the Research Strategy sub-committee of the School of Social Sciences, a year later WFRC became a University Strategic Research Group. Our objectives are : – To […]
Making the Most of MOOCs
by Lisa Harris via WSI | WSI
19th May at 12.30pm in 34/3001 After the success of the Web Science and Oceans MOOCs, 19th May sees the launch of the Portus MOOC and a number of others are in the pipeline. This event will introduce you to current and future MOOC developments with an overview of the Portus MOOC and early plans for the Digital Marketing MOOC. …
Population Health USRG: Public Health and Adapting to Climate Change in Cape Town
by Frances Clarke
The moment we arrived in Cape Town we were immersed in the challenges of Public Health and Adapting to Climate Change – the theme of this year’s WUN conference. Those who chose to join the field trip to the Goedgedacht Trading company saw a response to climate change, and the fruits – in this case olives – of a farm project that encourages the growing of produce that is not water hungry. Those who visited the Rocklands Urban Abundance Centre saw at first hand the challenges of food security through the lens of food production in the area. Those who visited Graveyard Pond and Sweet Home, two communities on Cape Flats, met representatives from the communities and saw the resourceful actions demonstrated and required by the community leaders and their teams as they continue to tackle the challenges caused by having dwellings in an area prone to flooding.
Narrow ‘streets’ in Graveyard Pond.
After these day-long trips, delegates convened in the evening to hear Professor Max Price, Vice-Chancellor of Cape Town University, and Professor John Hearn, Executive Director of WUN, giving a warm welcome. Sir David King, the main speaker, received a rousing introduction from the British High Commissioner to South Africa, Judith MacGregor.
Here is a flavour of the next two, thought provoking, inspiring, mentally exhilarating, crammed days.
The keynote was given by Professor Jonathan Crush at 08.30 the next day.
Jonathan Crush on migration: ‘If all (migrants) were the inhabitants of one country, it would be the 5th largest population in the world… they have an economic significance which has not been adequately quantified…’
One of Professor Mark Hanson ‘s slides showed the UN Declaration, which has recently, after lobbying by WUN, been altered to include the Lifecourse approach to NCDs in its high level policy.
Duncan Matheka of NCD Child, advocated working directly with the young, as partners, to ensure dissemination of the Lifecourse approach. Nigel Rollins of the World Health Organisation reminded us that achieving scientific research goals depends on people getting on well together. Professor Don Nutbeam said that he learned from his time working in Government, that things go wrong, policy-wise, if researchers are answering questions that governments didn’t ask. Solomon Asfaw, from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation asked: what intervention could create a willingness to forgo a short term benefit in favour of a long term benefit? He said that making the case is key.
In lively Q & A sessions and break-out groups the delegates strove energetically to hammer out formulations to arrive at the right questions to ask. Questions like:-
What are the questions that the World Universities Network as a network, could answer, better, than each researcher on their own or each university as a single organisation?
As a network, could WUN produce an audit of all the creative, non-paternalistic responses to the challenges posed by food security and climate change, at civil society level?
A typical conference break-out group discussion was between research experts from Public Health, Food Production, EcoSystems and Climate Change and included representatives from either WHO, NCD Child or FAO.
The conference, as is only appropriate, given its subject, had a great way to enhance our health and wellbeing too. If, on Day 2, you got up in time, there was an optional, pre-breakfast ‘hike’ on the Lion’s Head – a mountain next to Table Mountain. By ‘hike’ I soon began to see that they meant ‘extremely dangerous and foolhardy mountaineering’. A large party of us set off, most wearing unsuitable clothes and footwear. It was brilliant – tremendous.
I confess to being overcome with vertigo eventually and making a life preserving decision to begin to scramble back down. I was helped by friendly fellow mountaineers who leapt nimbly from crag to crag oblivious to the ghastly drop, inches to our right. It was terrifying (not to the others, I hasten to add) but I wouldn’t have missed it for anything, AND we were back in time for breakfast. I duly added it to my GoFit minutes for the week.
There go my intrepid fellow delegates
Burying the Digital
by Graeme Earl via WSI | WSI
I am at Museums and the Web this week in Baltimore. I was sat next to @trinkermedia and we were talking enthusiastically about the physical, tangible and the interactive digital (as usual). Over the last few years we have been digitising very large collections of cuneiform tablets and are mid way through developing an open source […]