Archived video files from the Governor’s Conference on Public Health: Barn Raising VI, Iowa’s premier public health event for 2007, are available for viewing on the conference’s state-of-the-art Web site: www.thehealthconference.org .   The conference was held August 2-3 at Drake University in Des Moines.  

The Web site contains nine video files, including a keynote address by Julie Gerberding, MD, MPH, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and presentations by Vermont State Sen. M. Jane Kitchel and John McDonough, PhD, MPA, executive director, Massachusetts Health Care for All.  Kitchel and McDonough played lead roles in advancing affordable health services for everyone in their states.  Dr. Martin Collis, Canadian pioneer wellness expert, highlighted the second conference day with a keynote and final address.  Both can be viewed on the conference Web site.

More video files will soon be available, including the presentation “Doing What’s Right: Ethical Issues in Public Health” by Peter D. Jacobson, JD, MPH, director of the Center for Law, Ethics, and Health at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.  A presentation on accreditation, assessment, and quality improvement will also be added. Presenters were Leslie Beitsch, MD, JD, director of the Center on Medicine and Public Health at Florida State University, and Lee Thielen, MPA, executive director, Colorado Association of Local Public Health Officials, and the Public Health Alliance of Colorado.

A Healthy Communities magazine debuted at the conference is aimed at increasing awareness of what is happening across the state from the biggest community — Des Moines (on the front cover) — to some of the smallest — George (on the back cover).  The publication can be used as a very practical planning guide for community leaders to take action.  Plans are under way to put the magazine on the Web site.  A draft is now available.  Contact Tim Lane, editor, for a hard copy by sending him an e-mail at tlane@idph.state.ia.us.