Our Health - Who Decides? Forum update

As you know we are currently planning a significant event for November this year – our inaugural forum: Our health – who decides?

There are a group of 13 Network members who are working together to bring you a thought-provoking, exciting and engaging event. We are committed to delivering an event that is people-focused and that is underpinned by the values of courage, empowerment, shared responsibility and fairness.

So far the following presenters have agreed to be involved. To stay up to date, you are invited to follow this blog (scroll down on left side):

Ron Labonte: Ronald Labonte is Canada Research Chair in Globalization & Health Equity, Institute of Population Health , and Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, at the University of Ottawa , and Adjunct Professor, Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, University of Saskatchewan . He is the former Director of the Saskatchewan Population Health and Evaluation Research Unit (SPHERU), a bi-university interdisciplinary research organization he created and led from 1999 until 2004, that was committed to “engaged research” on population health determinants at local, national and global levels. Ron is a founding member of the Canadian Coalition for Global Health Research, and a past board member of provincial and national public health associations in Canada. He recently worked with international colleagues in preparing The Global Health Watch, an ‘alternative world health report,’ released in July, 2005. 

Fran Baum is Professor of Public Health and Director of the Southgate Institute of Health, Society and Equity, and the South Australian Community Health Research Unit, at Flinders University. Professor Baum is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, and one of Australia's leading researchers on the social and economic determinants of health. In 2008 she was awarded a prestigious Australian Research Council Federation Fellowship focusing on development of effective government and community responses to social determinants of health inequity and social exclusion. She holds several other national competitive grants investigating aspects of health inequity, and has an extensive teaching career in public health. Professor Baum's numerous publications relate to social determinants of health, including Aboriginal people's health, health inequities, primary health care, health promotion, Healthy Cities, and social capital. Her text book The New Public Health (3rd ed. 2008 OUP) is widely used as a core public health text.

Dora Marinova is Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute (WA). Dora’s involvement and interest in interdisciplinary research started during her PhD studies with the development of a novel method for measuring the effects of R&D investment on economic development. Her background in engineering, mathematics and economics allows her to cross boundaries between social sciences and science research, policy strategies and engineering, demography and community development, university, industry and civil society.

  

Sally Brinkam is a social epidemiologist with the majority of her research focusing on societies' impact on child development. Sally is a Senior Research Fellow and Program Manager Faculty Member at the world renowned Telethon Institute for Child Health Research in Perth. Sally is also the Co-Director of the Fraser Mustard Centre, an innovative new initiative between the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research and the South Australia Department of Education and Child Development aimed to improve research translation. Sally is well known for spearheading the use of the Early Development Instrument (EDI) in Australia, being the first to pilot the instrument outside of Canada. Sally continues to work across the country to help facilitate the use of the Australian EDI (AEDI) working with communities, service providers and governments. Locally Sally consults to the Department of Children's Services Policy Directorate primarily around data-linkage, the Children's Centres Operational Group around evaluation, and the SA AEDI Team around community advocacy and research translation. Internationally, Sally works with Governments and donor organisations such as the World Bank, UNICEF, AusAid and the Bernard Van Leer Foundation working with various measures of child development for monitoring and evaluation purposes. Sally has over 50 publications including books, chapters, monographs and journal articles covering topics such as infant mouthing behaviours, child physical activity and nutrition levels, the measurement of alcohol related violence, the evaluation of teenage pregnancy prevention programs, how child development varies across communities and the impact of socio economics and service integration on child development. As such Sally brings locally, nationally and internationally recognised epidemiological skills particularly in relation to population monitoring of child development and education.  She has a commitment to practical, pragmatic and translatable research.

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To assist your fellow members in their efforts to make this event both memorable and significant we invite you to be involved. There are a number of ways you can participate NOW including:

·         Financial support: Does your organisation have the capacity to contribute some funding toward this event, or to fund a particular aspect of it such as the involvement of an international speaker? If so, we’d like to hear from you. The Network does not have any funding to run this event and therefore we are looking for support from organisations that are able to help out.

·         Tell everyone: Help us promote this event and encourage people to put it in their diaries.

·         Invite someone else: Think about inviting a peer who might not ordinarily think that their work is about health, a neighbour, a politician, your Mum...to come with you to this forum. This event is for everyone who has ever wondered, “Why, despite the vast resources spent on health care, is there still so much ill health and health inequality?”

We look forward to bringing you more news about our progress shortly and also look forward to hearing from you about how you can assist.