About 12,000 public health professionals from around the nation and across the globe are expected to converge on Denver this month for the 138th APHA Annual Meeting.
To be held Nov. 6–10, the meeting will bring together health workers around the theme of “Social Justice: A Public Health Imperative.” With about 1,000 scientific sessions, the meeting will cover the full spectrum of public health topics, from disease outbreaks, community programs and health promotion to reform, competencies and infrastructure.
“The APHA Annual Meeting is the nation’s premier public health event,” said APHA Executive Director Georges Benjamin, MD, FACP, FACEP (E). “Social justice is at the heart of public health work, and addressing inequities plays a crucial role in improving the health, well-being and longevity of all Americans.”
The meeting will feature hundreds of scientific and educational sessions — including roundtables, poster sessions and panel discussions — and thousands of scientific papers on the latest public health issues. The meeting will also offer networking, career and continuing education opportunities.
Among the draws at the Annual Meeting will be prominent leaders in public health and social justice. The meeting’s opening session, to be held Sunday, Nov. 7, at noon, will feature Cornel West, PhD, an author, philosopher and civil rights activist, and William Jenkins, PhD, MPH, an epidemiologist, biostatistician and APHA member who helped end the infamous Tuskegee study.
The closing session, moderated by NPR health policy correspondent Joanne Silberner, will focus on health reform and the implications the new laws will have on public health at the local, state and federal levels. Speakers at the session, which will be held Wednesday at 2:30 p.m., will include John Colmers, MPH, Maryland’s secretary of health and mental hygiene, an APHA member.
The meeting events will officially kick off Sunday with the opening session, followed by the start of the APHA Public Health Expo. The expo will feature more than 700 booths of information, products and services geared toward public health professionals as well as presentations and scientific poster sessions.
The Annual Meeting’s hundreds of scientific and educational sessions will continue through Wednesday and encompass the public health field.
Among the highlights will be the “National Prevention and Health Promotion Strategy Listening Session,” number 3000.2. To be held Monday at 7:30 a.m., the session will focus on the Prevention and Public Health Fund and the National Prevention, Health Promotion and Public Health Council, both of which were created under the new health reform law. The session will be moderated by Janet Collins, PhD, acting associate director for program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and APHA’s Benjamin.
Another high-level session expected to be a draw will be the “Health Equity Forum,” 3285.1, which is co-sponsored by APHA and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and will be held Monday at 2:30 p.m. The session, which will include an open discussion with audience participants, seeks to engage public health leaders on health equity.
Also on the agenda will be APHA-sponsored sessions dedicated to improving the public health system, focusing on issues such as health department accreditation, boards of health, performance assessment, public health quality and Healthy People 2020. To browse the sessions, visit the Annual Meeting online program and select the link for “APHA-Innovations Project.”
Health professionals can pick up tips on how to work with the media and advocate for public health during sessions at the meeting. APHA is sponsoring a day-long schedule of sessions on the topics on Monday. The offerings will include a session on media advocacy, 3097, and mobilizing a public health campaign, 3290 (see ad, Page 28).
APHA leaders and members will also be conducting business during the Annual Meeting. Those that will be at work include the Governing Council, APHA’s body of member-elected representatives, which will hold business sessions on Saturday, Nov. 7, and Tuesday, Nov. 9. APHA members are welcome to attend the sessions, which will have seating for the public.
During its meetings, the Governing Council will be considering proposed APHA policies, which if adopted will serve as the Association’s official stances on public health issues. Public hearings on the policies will be held Sunday from 3:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. The hearings are open to any APHA member who wants to comment on the policies, drafts of which can be accessed on the APHA website at www.apha.org/advocacy/policy.
APHA’s Sections, Special Primary Interest Groups, Caucuses, Forums and Student Assembly will host scientific sessions, business meetings, exhibit booths and poster sessions as well. Other business gatherings include the Committee on Affiliates Leadership Day and Intersectional Council meetings, both on Saturday.
Meeting participants can look up sessions by topic or sponsor now via the online program at www.apha.org/meetings.
The Annual Meeting will also feature more than a dozen pre-convention Learning Institutes on Nov. 6–7, through which eligible participants can earn continuing education credits. The institutes will cover topics such as social media, emergency risk communication and statistical health data. For the first time, APHA will offer continuing education credits for maintaining the certified in public health credential.
Annual Meeting registrants can also earn continuing education credits by attending and evaluating certain scientific sessions during the regular meeting. A list of sessions available for credits will be printed in the Annual Meeting final program. More information on credits will be available at the continuing education booth at the Colorado Convention Center.
Public health professionals who want to take in sessions they missed or review a session they attended will be able to listen to them later online. APHA’s E-ssentialLearning program, which does not offer educational credit, allows Web users to hear audio from scientific sessions and watch PowerPoint presentations from their own computers after the meeting ends. More information on E-ssentialLearning, which requires a registration fee, is available online at www.apha.org/meetings.
On the lighter side of the APHA meeting
The Annual Meeting will also feature activities that are on the lighter side, such as socials and entertainment.
Among the high-profile entertainment offerings will be a concert with Grammy Award-winning artist Aaron Neville. Headlining as Aaron Neville and His Quintet, featuring Charles Neville, the group will perform Sunday at 6:30 p.m. Tickets for the performance are $15 and can be purchased at any registration desk at the Colorado Convention Center.
Also a draw at the meeting will be the annual APHA Film & Media Festival. To be held Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the festival will feature short videos, films and other media with a public health focus, as well as discussions and interaction with directors and creators (see sidebar). To review the festival lineup, visit the Annual Meeting online program and select the link for “APHA-Film & Media Festival.”
Annual Meeting attendees will have the chance to interact with public health book authors during special signing events. The book signings, to be held at the APHA Pubmart section of the Public Health Expo at the convention center, will feature authors from some of APHA’s most popular books.
To be held Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, the book signings will feature authors such as APHA members Vincent DeMarco and Michael Pertschuk of “The DeMarco Factor: Transforming Public Will Into Political Power” and Richard Riegelman, MD, PhD, MPH, of “Public Health 101: Healthy People-Healthy Populations,” who is also an APHA member. For the full lineup of signings, see the ad on Page 5.
For those who like to mix exercise in with their entertainment, APHA’s Physical Activity Special Primary Interest Group will be once again holding a Fun Run/Walk during the Annual Meeting. The 5K event will be held Tuesday, Nov. 9, at 6:15 a.m., and will kick off at the convention center’s outdoor plaza.
And for those who prefer their entertainment electronically, the Annual Meeting will include a wealth of social media tools. Whether at home or in Denver, Web users will be able to use the Annual Meeting Blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Flickr sites and other tools to access meeting news, activities and photos.
Twitter users will be able to follow the Annual Meeting in two places: On the official Annual Meeting Twitter and the Public Health Twitter. Meeting Twitterers are encouraged to use the #apha10 hashtag in their posts.
For the first time, APHA will be using Foursquare during the Annual Meeting, allowing users to “check in” via their GPS-enabled smartphones and claim “mayorship” of Annual Meeting locations. Check-in locations will be promoted via Twitter and Facebook, and will be listed on the Annual Meeting social media Web page.
In addition to social media engagement, the annual meeting will be offering a number of sessions on the topic. Of special interest will be an APHA-sponsored session on the “Role of Social Media in Public Health.” To be held on Monday at 4:30 p.m., session 3383 will offer tips on using social media to relay health messages.
To find out more about social media opportunities during the Annual Meeting, stop by the social media desk in the Mix and Mingle Lounge in the convention center — and pick up a social media sticker to wear at the meeting.
Links to the social media tools that will be in use during the meeting are online at www.apha.org/meetings/Social+Media+at+Annual+Meeting.
Other Annual Meeting highlights include:
the Public Health Awards Reception and Ceremony on Tuesday at 6 p.m.;
Public Health CareerMart at the expo, which will offer information on job openings, career counseling and a chance to meet with employers; and
the Everything APHA booth at the expo, with meeting merchandise and APHA publications.
The Annual Meeting’s events will be centered at the Colorado Convention Center, Hyatt Regency Downtown and Grand Hyatt. Shuttle service will be offered for official Annual Meeting hotels, except for those that are within walking distance of the convention center. APHA’s Annual Meeting website has detailed information on accessibility during the event.
Participants can register on-site for the Annual Meeting at the Colorado Convention Center. Registrants will receive a printed copy of the final meeting program with session locations when they check in at the convention center in Denver.
For more on the APHA meeting and to access the online program, visit www.apha.org/meetings. For questions, e-mail comments{at}apha.org or call 202-777-2742.
Annual Meeting film festival to feature documentary screening
A new documentary film that details the link between human health and the environment will be screened during the APHA Film Festival as part of the Association’s Annual Meeting in November.
“Living Downstream,” which is based on a book of the same name, charts the life and work of Sandra Steingraber, a biologist and cancer prevention advocate. Steingraber was diagnosed at age 20 with cancer, a disease that is common in her family. However, because Steingraber is adopted, she recognized that the commonality was more likely an environmental link, rather than a genetic one.
The film uses Steingraber’s life experience to frame research on environmental links to cancer and other health ailments, highlighting issues such as chemicals and pesticides.
Both Steingraber and film director Chanda Chevannes, of the People’s Picture Company, will be on hand during a screening of the movie at the APHA Film Festival, which will take place during the APHA Annual Meeting in Denver. Portions of the movie will be shown and discussed during session 5092, which begins at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 10.
For information on the film or to set up a screening, visit www.livingdownstream.com. For more on the APHA Annual Meeting or the film festival, visit www.apha.org/meetings.
APHA hosts one-day summit on health reform in Denver on Nov. 6
This year’s APHA Annual Meeting will feature a first: A daylong, in-depth summit with some of the nation’s public health leaders.
The Summit on Health Reform will focus on what health reform will mean to the field of public health and offer practical information that health professionals can use to implement reform provisions in their agencies and communities.
Headliners at the event will include Howard Koh, MD, MPH, assistant secretary for health of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Regina Benjamin, MD, MBA, U.S. surgeon general; Mary Wakefield, PhD, RN, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration; APHA member Carolyn Clancy, MD, director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality; and Ileana Arias, PhD, principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“With the U.S. health system undergoing momentus changes under reform, now is the time for public health workers to come together and share ideas and best practices that will advance their work,” said APHA Executive Director Georges Benjamin, MD, FACP, FACEP (E). “This summit will give attendees real-world information they can use as they implement health reform provisions in their workplaces.”
A separate registration is required for the summit, which may be purchased on-site at the Colorado Convention Center. Up to 6.25 continuing education credits are available for attending the summit.
Attendees who tweet the summit are asked to use the #aphasummit hashtag in their posts.
For more on the APHA Summit on Health Reform, visit www.apha.org/summit.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association