Global warming, the war in Afghanistan and AIDS in Africa may seem like remote problems but they affect Hawaii and other Pacific islands, says Nancy S. Partika, Hawaii Public Health Association president. Public health conference
has global reachPacific and mainland delegates
will discuss world health issuesBy Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.com"Global health issues are getting more serious and because we're becoming more of a global society, we need to think locally, but we need to act globally," she emphasized.
Concerns about global health issues have led to the first conference on "Global Public Health: Issues and Strategies for Hawaii and the Pacific."
About 350 to 400 delegates from throughout the Pacific and the mainland will attend the sessions today and tomorrow at the Hawaii Convention Center.
The Public Health Association is sponsoring the conference with a host of state, federal and private partners.
Laurie Garrett, award-winning Newsday medical and science writer and author, will be among keynote speakers.
She is the only writer to receive all three major journalism awards: the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for writings on the ebola virus; two George C. Polk Awards, one in 1998 for international reporting, "Crumbled Empire, Shattered Health," and for the best book of 2000, "Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health," and the George Foster Peabody Award for Broadcasting in 1997.
She also will give a free public lecture at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the University of Hawaii-Manoa Campus Center Ballroom.
Other major speakers will be:
>> Jay H. Glasser, president-elect of the American Public Health Association and editor of the Medicine and Public Health Initiative Web site. He is a professor and co-director of the International Program on Health Technology Assessment at the University of Texas.
>> Dr. Noa Emmett Aluli, primary care physician with the Molokai Family Health Center and medical executive director of Molokai General Hospital, subsidiary of the Queen's Health Care System.
>> Dr. Sitaleki Finau, new director of the Fiji School of Medicine's School of Public Health and Primary Care and editor of Pacific Health Dialog, a Pacific region medical journal. He is leading the way for what he calls the "Pacification" of public health.
More than 90 health professionals and specialists will participate in workshops, panels and roundtable sessions.
Nancy Kern, state Health Department STD/HIV prevention coordinator and one of the conference planners, said public health problems are worsening.
"The gap between the rich and poor, poverty and lack of nutritional health care are issues for people worldwide as well as in Hawaii."
The Hawaii Public Health Association and other health-related Hawaii agencies and organizations felt it was time to address the issues by pulling together concerned people throughout the region, Kern said.
Partika said global public health is increasingly critical, "even for areas that can be geographically isolated, like the Pacific."
The conference goal is to share concerns, information and strategies "so we can move together more actively in participating in global public health," she said.
Among topics at the inaugural meetings are Pacific public policy issues, native Hawaiian and women's health, infectious diseases, nutrition, mental health, environmental health, public health training, disaster response, oral health, HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, teen pregnancy, telemedicine, cultural sensitivity training for health professionals and the nursing workforce.
Other issues addressed will be bioterrorism preparedness, promoting sexually responsible behavior, tobacco prevention and control, community partnerships, tropical diseases, end of life care and networking for global public health.