IAMP

SAPEA: Science Advice for Policy by European Academies

mkareithi — Fri, 16 Dec 2016 07:41:09 +0000

SAPEA – the Science Advice for Policy by European Academies project composed of the five European Academy networks was launched on 13 December in Brussels.

Representing more than 100 academies across Europe SAPEA will contribute to the European Scientific Advice Mechanism that advices the European Commission.

See Press Release Here

For more information on SAPEA please contact:
Mr Robert Vogt
SAPEA Communications Officer
vogt@allea.org

Marketing: a further tool to fight disease

mkareithi — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 10:13:30 +0000

For doctors fighting disease, marketing can make all the difference. Social marketing has the key to unlocking the promotion of healthy behaviour, says physician Edsel Salvaña, and HIV/AIDS prevention in the Philippines provides a strong example

......read on

Link:

http://www.iamp-online.org/content/doctors-fighting-disease-marketing-can-make-a...

For doctors fighting disease, marketing can make all the difference

mkareithi — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 10:00:37 +0000

Social marketing has the key to unlocking the promotion of healthy behaviour, says physician Edsel Salvaña, and HIV/AIDS prevention in the Philippines provides a strong example

Filipino physician Edsel Salvaña will never forget one case. A young man in his 20s had been diagnosed with HIV in 2006. But when he sought help, doctors were so disgusted by his diagnosis they rushed him out of the hospital without redirecting him to an HIV clinic, leaving him terrified of facing that stigma all over again.

Salvaña saw him as an in-patient two years later. By then the young man was covered with sores which they determined to be a common fungus that typically causes harmless skin infections. But with his weakened immune system, the fungus went on to kill him, and Salvaña had to explain to his mother that her son was going to die.

“I was heartbroken, as I thought of my own mother, and my own son,” he said. “And I swore to myself that I would do everything in my power to beat this disease and spare mothers the heartbreak of what we were going through.”

This case was one of several in a growing number of HIV patients that Salvaña saw after returning to work as a doctor after training in the United States. He had only seen one full-blown HIV/AIDS case as a medical student in the Philippines in 2002. But after returning from training in the United States in 2008, he saw 12 in just a few months. All of them were young and about half died from the disease. “I continued to see an avalanche of cases in the following months and I decided to switch gears and concentrate my clinical and research focus to HIV,” Salvaña said.

It was clear that the threat of HIV was climbing, and that inspired Salvaña to push forward the Philippines’ first social marketing campaign against HIV. This was the topic of Salvaña’s talk at the IAP for Health Conference in Beijing, China, on 28 September, in which he discussed how the principles underlying social marketing can be useful for promoting health beyond medical clinics by compelling people to engage in healthier behaviour.

Salvaña’s work on HIV awareness and prevention earned him ‘The Outstanding Young Men’ Philippines award in 2010, and selection in 2012 as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Persons of the World by JCI International. In 2013, he was selected by IAP for Health (then IAMP) as a Young Physician Leader.

It can be a difficult challenge to get people excited about public health, said Salvaña. But doctors and health policy experts can turn to marketing techniques, because marketers have mastered how to make an idea or a product desirable. The problem, he said, is well-illustrated by what’s known as the 'Coca-Cola Conundrum'.

“Why is it so hard to get life-saving medications into a remote village in Africa? But when you get there they have Coca-Cola and iPhones?” he said. “It’s because marketing is effective. You’re creating the perception of value. And you can use the Coca-Cola conundrum to study how to change people’s behaviour.”

The intended effect of social marketing is to use the power of marketing to improve people’s behavioural habits, such as eating healthier, exercising, getting screened for cancer, stopping smoking, testing for HIV, using birth control, and lobbying for more funding for public health. But it is sometimes controversial because it can be considered coercive and can even include mixing public campaigns with private interests in the form of donors and sponsors.

Still, some social marketing campaigns have been proving incredibly successful, such as the well-known international pink ribbon campaign that urges women to screen for breast cancer.

With Salvaña’s help, a similar campaign made an impact on HIV in the Philippines. He and a diverse group of medical specialists, HIV patients and advocates with a stake in the issue drew inspiration from medical students in Australia who run benefit concerts called 'Red Parties' that promote AIDS education and fundraising. The concerts are adorned with red, the international colour for HIV and AIDS.

On 5 September, 2009, the Philippine Red Party was created and held its own benefit concert simultaneously with Australia’s. Meanwhile, the local MTV branch ran commercials on the issue. They raised enough funds to purchase a machine useful for diagnosing HIV for the Philippine General Hospital in Manila. Science also took notice, publishing their benefit’s poster alongside an article on HIV in Asia.

The party and its related coverage in the months that followed also prompted a surge in HIV testing at Philippine General Hospital, which climbed from 39 patients in September 2009, the month of the concert, to a peak of 150 patients in February 2010. This means that the party accomplished an important first step, said Salvana, because while it’s important to keep the message going, getting the message out in the first place is the most challenging.

“Media can also pressure your potential leaders,” he said. “The Philippine government declared an AIDS epidemic, and our campaign was a significant reason for that."

Salvaña said it wasn’t easy to get people to see HIV as a pertinent issue. He faced accusations that he was spreading panic. But what he saw on the ground in clinics as a physician was alarming enough that he continued to push forward with broad support from friends in the media, other advocates and medical students who started studying infectious diseases and found their own calling in fighting the spread of HIV in the Philippines.

“It was a difficult road,” he said, “but the truth eventually came out because young people were dying, and the government could no longer ignore it.”

Sean Treacy

Critical Care and Catastrophe Medicine

mkareithi — Wed, 09 Nov 2016 14:33:05 +0000

IAP for Health was recently invited to participate in the annual conference of the Georgian Academy of Medical Sciences (GAMS) on ‘New Steps in Critical Care and Catastrophe Medicine’.

On 29-30 October 2016, the Georgian Academy of Medical Sciences (GAMS) joined with the Georgian Institute of Critical Care Medicine and the Georgian Association of Catastrophe and Critical Care Medicine to host the annual conference on "New Steps in Critical Care and Catastrophe Medicine"

The conference, held in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, was attended by about 50 persons, including academicians plus other medics from Tbilisi and elsewhere in Georgia.

IAP coordinator, Peter McGrath, attended and presented an overview of the IAP structure, its goals and main activities. Given the theme of the conference, he also focused on the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 and how it requires science and technology to help achieve its goals.

In part thanks to the work of the academies, the Sendai Framework includes heavy emphasis on the use of science and technology for disaster risk reduction. For example, paragraph 25 (g) of the Framework calls to “Enhance the scientific and technical work on disaster risk reduction and its mobilization through the coordination of existing networks and scientific research institutions at all levels and all regions with the support of the UNISDR Scientific and Technical Advisory Group...”

McGrath also highlighted other sections of the Sendai Framework, notably sections 30(i), 30(j) and 30(k) – see below – especially in relation to healthcare provision and catastrophe medicine, i.e. treatment of patients who have suffered from being in a disaster situation.

During the meeting, P. McGrath was presented with an honorary diploma by the Georgian Institute of Critical Care Medicine and was interviewed for a local television channel.

In follow-up talks with the president of GAMS, Zurab Kheladze, an offer was made to host a similar meeting next year, ideally with the participation of suitable experts from member academ ies from other countries.

Conference agenda

Relevant paragraphs of the Sendai Framework

• 30 (i) enhance the resilience of national health systems, including by integrating disaster risk management into primary, secondary and tertiary health care, especially at the local level; developing the capacity of health workers in understanding disaster risk and applying and implementing disaster risk reduction approaches in health work; promoting and enhancing the training capacities in the field of disaster medicine; and supporting and training community health groups in disaster risk reduction approaches in health programmes, in collaboration with other sectors, as well as in the implementation of the International Health Regulations (2005) of the World Health Organization;

• 30 (j) strengthening the design and implementation of inclusive policies and social safety-net mechanisms, including through community involvement, integrated with livelihood enhancement programmes, and access to basic health-care services, including maternal, newborn and child health, sexual and reproductive health, food security and nutrition, housing and education, towards the eradication of poverty, to find durable solutions in the post-disaster phase and to empower and assist people disproportionately affected by disasters;

• 30 (k) People with life-threatening and chronic disease, due to their particular needs, should be included in the design of policies and plans to manage their risks before, during and after disasters, including having access to life-saving services.

Ensuring that city life is a healthy life (cont'd)

mkareithi — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 09:54:14 +0000

But there are ways to curb the effects on living on mental health. Researchers have begun to track the link between the availability of green spaces – such as parks – and better mental health. And now some urban policymakers have started to take notice of the importance of giving citydwellers' brains the space needed to relax. For example, the United Kingdom highlighted the 2011 restoration of Clissold Park in northeast London as an example of a health intervention.

To some degree, the problems are economic. As people receive more access to wealth and easily available food, their obesity rises too – and a four-decade analysis published in The Lancet projects that 20% of the world's population will be obese by 2025. Meanwhile, those with low incomes more commonly have to suffer through poor-quality health care.

And the space constraints found in urban areas can cause declines in health, as environments deteriorate and become more polluted. Air pollution increases to cause deadly cases of lung cancer – urban air pollution is linked to up to 1 million premature deaths each year, and death from lung cancer in China happens at a higher rate in cities than in rural areas, even though a lower percentage of city dwellers are smokers.

In fact, these issues are particularly relevant to China, as the story of China’s rapid and strong development is a story of the growth of cities. The percentage of Chinese people living in cities grew from 18% in 1978 to over 50% in 2011, Gatzweiler noted. And current projections estimate that 1 billion Chinese people will live in cities by 2040, an increase of 400 million over the next 30 years. Twenty million migrant workers also arrive in China each year.

Now, China is already home to some of the most populous cities in the world – such as Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin and Guangzhou. It is also seeing the development of megacity clusters – large cities that begin to encroach on each other – all of which suffer from the country’s notorious air pollution. These cities are seeing adverse health issues unfold first hand.

So China needs a new style of urbanization, Gatzweiler says, that is oriented around people and their well-being.

“A healthy city is one that is continually creating and improving those physical and social environments,” Gatzweiler said, quoting Trevor Hancock, a founder of the World Health Organization's Healthy City project, “and expanding those community resources which enable people to mutually support each other in performing all the functions of life and in developing to their maximum potential.”

Sean Treacy, TWAS Public Information Office

(Back to top)

Ensuring that city life is a healthy life

mkareithi — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 09:31:51 +0000

Whether seeking new personal connections, or pursuing opportunities for jobs and education, or escaping a war zone – health and well-being are central to why people move from one place to settle in another. And when people move, they tend to gravitate toward big cities.

In fact, today, over 54 percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 66 percent by 2050, according to the UN report “World Urbanization Prospects

This is because cities provide important “opportunity spaces” where people can expand their contacts and chase better economic status or personal dreams, said Franz Gatzweiler at the IAP for Health Conference in Beijing, China on 28 September. But not every city is built to sustain these spaces for its people. And the result is a big health impact that scientists and policymakers can’t afford to ignore.

Gatzweiler is the executive director of the global programme “Urban Health and Well-Being: a Systems Approach” at the Institute of Urban Environment Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, China. The programme is sponsored by the International Council for Science (ICSU, the United Nations University and IAP for Health. And his talk was a highlight of the IAP for Health conference, where global leaders in healthcare and medicine met to discuss new and better ways to promote good health and well-being for a growing global population.

Understanding the role cities play is indispensible to the future health of urban populations. They provide a habitat, goods and services, structure in the form of rules and regulations, and cultural spaces – which in turn encourage innovation and ideas. But understanding the complexity and uniqueness of health problems in urban environments is beyond the scope of any one discipline. So Gatzweiler’s programme advocates for a “systems approach” that he says breathes life into the unused potential found in cities.

“The multi-dimensional spaces provided by the urban environment – or the systems in which people can thrive – have not been fully explored and made use of for human health and well-being,” he said. “The systems approach is a key to unlock these potentials of cities for human health and well-being.”

For example, one kind of unused potential occurs when infrastructure and social support are not available for a rapidly growing population. It’s called “dead capital” – assets such as slums or polluted industrial areas, which can’t be easily bought or sold. From a human perspective, dead capital also amounts to a space where people can’t fully develop their potential. They create illness and trap people in poverty.

When a rapid increase in population density outpaces the development of infrastructure, that dead capital becomes pervasive. Only a serious investment in infrastructure focused on improving people’s well-being can bring it back to life.

“What matters today,” he said, “is that although health has improved and is better than ever before, especially in cities, today’s symptoms of deteriorating urban health are again signs of failing to apply interconnected thinking, collective intelligence and action for urban health and well-being.”

But dead capital is just one major piece of an overwhelmingly complex puzzle. Gatzweiler said that part of the systems approach is that it provides a new perspective on the process of knowledge creation itself. It manages the complexity by seeking a diversity of many kinds of information rather than over-focusing on one form of useful data at the exclusion of others, and accepting that there will be unfillable gaps in that data.

“But the core of the concept is that after acquiring knowledge and understanding of how health in cities is improving or deteriorating, it requires societal engagement to address health issues in cities and to bring them to the attention of the public,” he adds. “Cities are not only complex, they are also self-organizing systems. As such, they are uncontrollable or unplannable by one central entity alone.”

People, he said, are part of the health problems they define to be relevant. And that makes the systems approach much more challenging. “It requires a society which is educated, aware and empowered – given the rights – to address issues of urban health.”

Cities also bring with them a set of their own specific health problems that need managing. The stress of urban life also weighs on the human mind’s abilities to manage emotions, causing more mental health problems. For example, one STUDY published in Nature has shown that in stressed city-dwellers, a brain region called the amygdala involved in processing threats and fear was more active.

The risk of developing schizophrenia or depression is also higher in cities. “Our brains are not well-adapted for life in our urban environments,” Gatzweiler says.

....page 2

The Leadership We Want

mkareithi — Fri, 14 Oct 2016 15:04:55 +0000

Better Leadership: Improved Healthcare
Young Physician Leaders: "The Leadership We Want"

11 October 2016

Successful institutions need good leaders. And whether they are in high income countries or poorer countries, institutions providing healthcare, educating future physicians or promoting the public’s health are no different. IAP for Health YPL training events take place immediately prior to WHS meetings. This session was designed by the 24 participants of the 2016 event which took place on 7-9 October. Discussions focused on leadership challenges for young physicians and their solutions in countries with different socio-economic conditions. The session was open to everyone – students, young medical personnel at the start of their careers, as well as delegates holding more senior positions.
Hosts: InterAcademy Partnership for Health (IAP) European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) M8 Alliance Young Physician Leaders (YPL)	Chair: Dr. Jo Ivey Boufford New York Academy of Medicine, President United States of America
PRESENTATIONS	Chair: Jean Claude Njabou Katte
I EDUCATION	Beverley Ho Suraj Bhattarai Claus Lattrich Tasdik Hasan Sazzli Kasim Lloyd Nash Sumaya Adam Viet Hang Dao
II TECHNOLOGY	Damir Ivankovic Ives Passos John Mark Velasco Olaf Roerick Sarah Matemu Sebastian Dries Pooja Merchant
III CLINICAL & PUBLIC HEALTH	Doyin Bello Sacith Mettananda Kalana Maduwage Aekarach Ariyachaipanich Juan Carlos Nunez-Enriquez Promise Sefogah Mary Ashinyo Maryam Albashir

YPL HOME PAGE

YPL 2016 – Personal impressions

mkareithi — Fri, 14 Oct 2016 14:16:08 +0000

Following a nomination by my national academy, the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and a selection process by the executive committee of the InterAcademy Partnership for Health, I was chosen as one of 24 young physicians from all around the world to participate in the IAP for Health 2016 Young Physician Leaders (YPL) programme and the World Health Summit (WHS) in Berlin, Germany.

Only a couple of days after my first Young Forum Gastein experience, it was marvellous to meet another group of global young health(care) professionals motivated to act as agents of change in their countries, regions and globally.

The group of YPL was truly global – coming from Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Mexico, Nepal, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Sudan ... to name just some of the countries from where participants flew to Berlin. Besides all of us being young and being physicians, we came with a very varied professional and cultural backgrounds. Being bored was not an option!

The programme started with a day of visits (7 October). The Max Delbruck Centre (MDC) in the Berlin Bruch Campus and Bayer headquarters gave us an idea of how both academia/research and industry can work both big and small but stay focused on real health needs. At MDC we were introduced to a "beast", one of the few 7 Tesla magnetic resonance machines in the world, capable of providing high resolution images, even of beating hearts. Next to it was an open-source initiative that aims to offer small, €10.000 MR machines for use in developing countries and elsewhere. At Bayer we heard what's in the pipeline for next generation biologics but also how young people from around the world come to develop their eHealth ideas in Bayer’s Grants4Apps startup accelerator.

Next two days (8-9 October) were reserved for the leadership workshop at one of the best business schools in the world – Berlin’s European School of Management and Technology (ESMT). Here we were pushed to our limits in both teamwork and self-reflection. We also met and exchanged experiences with some very inspirational senior leaders in health, including IAP for Health executive committee members Rajae El-Aouad (Morocco) and Thomas Zeltner (Switzerland) along with Ilona Kickbusch of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva.

Germans say "Zucker kommt zu letzt" (The sugar/best comes at the end) and the same could be said for the final days of our Berlin experience. As special YPL representatives, we were invited to attend World Health Summit (9-11 October) and present on the last day with a session on ‘Young Leaders and the Future of Leadership in Global Health’ that we had designed in the previous 2 days.

More than 250 speakers and 1,500 participants in two days made it impossible to attend all the sessions and talk to all the people I found interesting at WHS. Nothing that can't be solved by returning in the following years...

Besides the ‘official’ programme, there was – of course – some time to start new friendships, to dance and to enjoy Berlin.

YPL programme factsheet:
* organized by InterAcademy Partnership (IAP) for Health;
* in cooperation with ESMT and the WHS;
* six editions in Berlin since 2011;
* 131 alumni so far (including the 2016 cohort).
* participation after selection process following a nomination by your national academy of medicine or science.

Damir Ivanković
2016 Young Physician Leader, Croatia
Croatian Institute for Public Health
(Hrvatski zavod za javno zdravstvo)
Rockefellerova 7
Zagreb, Croatia

"Fostering Action on Social Determinants" NAST, Philippines

mkareithi — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 11:24:32 +0000

Workshop on “Social Determinants of Health”

by the InterAcademy Partnership for Health (previously known as IAMP)

jointly anchored by

National Academy of Science and Technology Philippines,
Academy of Sciences Malaysia
Nigerian Academy of Science.
3 - 4 October 2016

Click on image to download the programme

IAP for Health Conference "Roadmap for a healthier future"

mkareithi — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 08:14:46 +0000

Vice Premier Liu Yandong

Students in the audience

C. Padilla (Philippines)

Conference speakers

On an increasingly crowded planet, fighting disease and providing for healthy lives to everyone is a global challenge that will test human ingenuity and generosity. But it is possible if we promote health diligently and take health threats seriously, said global leaders in healthcare and medicine at the InterAcademy Partnership for Health Conference 2016 in Beijing, China.

CONFERENCE HOME PAGE

Human health is better now that it has ever been in human history, said Anthony Capon of the International Institute for Global Health at the United Nations University. But there are still global health problems such as neglected tropical diseases and non-communicable diseases – such as those typically faced by ageing populations. And global environmental challenges such as climate change will exacerbate these challenges.

”But there is a good news story,” Capon noted. “Action taken on climate change will also benefit health. Renewable energy means less toxic pollution. Human health and environmental health complement one another.”

Hosted by the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), the IAP for Health Conference 2016– on the theme of ‘Promoting Health’ – took place from 27-28 September at the Beijing Conference Centre. At the conference, global experts in medical research, medical practice, and healthcare systems discussed best practices, new concepts and the future of healthcare worldwide, including how the concept of ‘promoting health’ can contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In addition, more than 300 representatives of China’s healthcare system, as well as students, attended.

The event also provided a platform for the launch the latest IAP for Health Statement, “A call for action to improve the reproducibility of biomedical research on 27 September.

China’s Vice Premier Liu Yandong delivered the conference’s keynote speech on 28 September, calling for the establishment of a global health governance system and for greater aid for public health research in developing countries. China and the world have an obligation to make sure that those living in poverty won’t remain in poverty because of diseases such as HIV and malaria, she affirmed.

“All these diseases are challenges to the health of humankind and the world,” said Liu. “The strongest weapon we have to fight all major diseases is innovation in medical science.”

Fifty years ago, the popular perception of infectious diseases among medical experts was that they would soon cease to be a threat. But that belief has proven very wrong, said US National Academy of Medicine Foreign Secretary Margaret Hamburg. Not only do mosquito-carried diseases plague much of the developing world, but outbreaks such as Ebola and Zika serve as a reminder of the power of infectious diseases to destroy lives and disrupt societies.

Hamburg called infectious diseases a security threat that has been neglected, and argued that global leadership must invest more in researching and preparing for them, and to do so with urgency. “We can’t let any of these wake up calls just be a wake-up call,” she said. “We need action; we need a global health risk framework.”

...................PAGE 2

MARKETING: A FURTHER TOOL FOR FIGHTING DISEASE
(E. Salvana, Philippines)

ENSURING THAT CITY LIFE IS A HEALTHY LIFE
(F. Gatzweiler, Germany)

Marketing: a further tool to fight disease Marketing: a further tool to fight disease

CONFERENCE HOME PAGE

Link:

http://www.iamp-online.org/content/iap-health-conference-roadmap-healthier-futur...