Title: Chair’s Corner
Author:
Section/SPIG: Aging & Public Health
Issue Date:
Welcome to the Spring Gerontological Health Section Newsletter, and my first opportunity to greet you as Chair of the GHS. We hope you find the information in this newsletter interesting and useful.
This newsletter is one of the many benefits offered by the APHA GHS. The benefits that attracted me to APHA GHS was the balance of scholarship, policy advocacy, and practice within the section. Many organizations emphasize one of those three areas, but APHA-GHS is the clear leader in offering all three.
Our scholarship is most evident at the Annual Meetings where we can see the latest research on the spectrum of public health and aging topics. And we recognize the best of this work in our awards session as a way to promote the excellent research of our members. We are also working to increase the gerontological content of APHA publications. In particular, if you have a book prospectus that would be appropriate for APHA, please contact me.
Policy education and advocacy is a year-round process. Last year the Association was especially active, in consultation and collaboration with our section members, in the Medicare prescription drug debate. The annual meeting in Washington, D.C. will provide you ample opportunity to be active in policy issues. Stay tuned for information about opportunities to visit your Senators' and Representative's offices to inform them about important issues on public health and aging.
Improving public health practice with older populations is also an ongoing activity. Our section promotes the development of practice through sessions and preconferences at our Annual Meeting, and we highlight the best in public health practice with the Archstone Award. Through new collaborations with the American Society on Aging we hope to further develop our practice strengths.
What makes our section really outstanding is the quality of the people involved in the section. We have a professionally active membership, a dedicated leadership, and fun time when we are together! I look forward to working together in the next two years!