Boston, Mass., November 8, 2006 – The American Public Health Association (APHA) concludes its 134th Annual Meeting in Boston today where over 13,000 public health professionals from around the world gathered to discuss pressing issues in public health and human rights, including emergency preparedness, access to health care, health disparities and pandemic influenza.
“Thousands of the nation’s dedicated and well-respected health professionals came together in Boston to address issues affecting Americans every day, from infectious disease to access to vital health services,” said Georges C. Benjamin, MD, FACP, executive director of the American Public Health Association. “The public health community renewed its commitment this week to working to protect the well-being of people in this nation.”
Paul E. Farmer, MD, PhD, founding director of Partners in Health, and Helene D. Gayle, MD, MPH, president and chief executive officer, of CARE USA, kicked off the meeting on Sunday, November 5, 2006. Over the next three days, there were more than 3,000 scientific presentations (abstracts are available at www.apha.org/meetings). The meeting closes today with comments from John E. McDonough, executive director of Health Care for All, and Vincent DeMarco, president of the Maryland Citizen’s Health Initiative.
Highlights of the meeting included the adoption of new policies by APHA’s Governing Council. In particular, the governing body approved policies related to:
- Pandemic influenza planning: APHA supports comprehensive national planning for an influenza pandemic and recommends key changes to the current response strategy, including ensuring care for vulnerable populations;
- Opposition to war in Iraq: APHA calls for the immediate initiation of the safe withdrawal of U.S. armed forces from Iraq accompanied by the deployment of U.N. peacekeeping troops in areas of high risk for inter-ethnic conflict or civil war;
- Opposition to abstinence-only education: APHA recognizes the importance of abstinence education, but only as part of a comprehensive sexuality education program;
- Reversal of the nation’s obesity epidemic: APHA supports the immediate mobilization of governmental, public and private agencies to coordinate actions to reverse the obesity epidemic, working toward achieving the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans as a means to begin reversing obesity rates;
- Banning trans fats in restaurants: APHA urges federal, state and local governments to ban and monitor the use of trans fat laden partially hydrogenated oils in restaurants or require restaurants to have menu labeling that would prominently disclose all amounts of trans fat greater than 0.1 gram per serving; and
- Support of global alcohol control: APHA urges the World Health Organization to adopt and implement a binding international treaty modeled after the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, a historic tobacco control treaty adopted in 2003, to help reduce the harmful consumption of alcoholic beverages.
Next year’s APHA Annual Meeting will be held Nov. 3-7, 2007, in Washington, D.C.