News and Updates

Updated March 5, 2015

This is an original Seminar of the new Spring School of Global Health organized by the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva, in collaboration with the Graduate Institute Geneva and the WFAIGH with the strong support of EAGHA. It will gather academics senior and junior scientists (e.g. PhD and Master students), LMIC diplomats (e.g. permanent UN representations from LMICs), and policy makers. Ten major topical issues which are on the 2015 WHA agenda will be presented, summarized and discussed during the first two days of the Seminar. The 3rd day, participants working in subgroups will be proposed to draft 10 corresponding reports as draft Technical and Policy Briefs, which will be written and hopefully published under the supervision of WFAIGH senior academics. 

Course facilitators

Prof. Antoine Flahault, Institute of Global Health, University of Geneva, co-president of EAGHA
Prof. Leonel Valdivia, University of Santiago, Chile, World Federation of Academic Institutions for Global Health, co-president of WFAIGH
Prof. Ilona Kickbusch, Graduate Institute Geneva
Dr. Michaela Told, Graduate Institute Geneva

Course moderator

Catherine Mary, PhD, freelance Journalist for Le Monde, Le Temps, Science

Themes

All bullet points are drawn from 2015 WHA preliminary agenda (all mentioned speakers have confirmed):

1. WHO Reform, Andrew Cassels, WHO, Geneva, CH
2. Promoting Health through the life course: Contributing to social and economic development: sustainable action across sectors to improve health and health equity (follow-up of the 8th Global Conference on Health Promotion), Leonel Valdivia, Santiago, Chile
3. Promoting Health through the life course: Climate and Health: outcome of the WHO Conference on Health and Climate, Andy Haines, London, UK
4. Promoting Health through the life course: Women and health: 20 years of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action , Nuria Casamitjana, Barcelona, Spain
5. Preparedness, surveillance and response: Poliomyelitis, Antoine Flahault, Geneva, CH
6. Preparedness, surveillance and response: Implementation of the IHR, Thomas Krafft, Maastricht, NL
7. Communicable diseases: Global vaccine action plan, Fernando Munoz, Chile
8. Health Systems: Global strategy and plan of action on public health, innovation and intellectual property, Muhammad Zaman, Boston, USA
9. Health Systems: Substandard/spurious/falsely-labellled/falsiefied/counterfeit medical products, Dominique Sprumont, Neuchâtel, CH
10. Non Communicable Diseases: Follow-up to the 2014 high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly to undertake a comprehensive review and assessment of the progress achieved in the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases, Fred Paccaud, Lausanne, CH

Day 1 (Thursday, June 4th) and Day 2 (Friday, June 5th) – 8.00 to 13.00 :

Session open to PhD and Master students and to the registered public audience (particularly invited are permanent rep. at UN Geneva from LMIC countries)

• Short welcome address;
• 10 times 1 hr workshop slots corresponding to 10 specific points selected from WHA agenda;
• Each workshop is chaired by one of us and one registered student, and is organized as a roundtable with one “Technical Speaker” (Academic faculty from our Institutions expert of the domain and designated asap when preliminary WHA agenda is available) and one “Policy Speaker” (Diplomat person from LMIC permanent rep. at UN Geneva, or WHO staff, to be defined soon together);
• Each registered PhD and Master students is assigned to one workshop, for secretariat of the workshop (see below, under Day3);
• Each workshop starts with a 15 min talk from the Technical Speaker followed by a 15 min talk by the Policy Speaker. After a 30 min debate involves the audience (students and public);

Day 3 (Saturday, June 6th) – 8.00 to 13.00 :

Session restricted to PhD and Master students

• Students are split in 10 subgroup to deliver by the end of the course a written draft of Technical & Policy Brief Reports, under the close supervision of us and if available of Technical Speakers;
• After validation by Technical and Policy Speakers and by us, the 10 T&P Briefs are to be submitted for publication in an open Journal.

Venue : Campus Biotech, Chemin des Mines 9, 1202 Genève
Dates : June, Thursday 4 to Saturday 6, 2015

Maximum : N/A
Fees : 900 CHF (academics) or 1'800 CHF (private sector), 450 CHF for SSPH+ students and participants from LMICs
Credits : 1 ECTS, corresponding to 25-30 hrs of student work

Deadlines for applications : April 30th, 2015

Register here:  http://unige.g2hp.net/registration-to-the-spring-school/

The new Virchow-Villermé Center for Public Health Paris-Berlin will launch a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) next October, 2013 entirely dedicated to public health and global health. It will be hosted by a platform developed in collaboration with Inria (French public institute for research in computer sciences), Sorbonne Paris Cité and Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin.

We are engaging in a large open consultation using the Delphi method amongst the wider international public health community in order to help us understand what your needs and expectations are when using these new innovative tools for massive distance education, i.e. MOOC, in order to obtain a concerted road map for the future development of the MOOC. Your input will be of great value in helping us design the MOOC. Please go to http://shiva.univ-paris5.fr/index.php?sid=68891&lang=en to answer this 40-item online questionnaire before July 21st, 2013.

Thank you for your time spent on this survey. There will be 2-3 rounds, so we will come back to you for the second round questionnaire at the end of August or early September, at which point you will also receive the results of the first round of the survey.

THET (Tropical Health and Education Trust) conference entitled, Getting out of hospital: Primary Care & Public Health in Global Health Partnerships is being held on Monday 15th July 2013, London. Tickets available now.