An Update on CHPPD Sessions at the 2008 APHA Annual Meeting

This year the Community Health Planning and Policy Development Section received more than 400 interesting and well prepared abstracts for the 2008  APHA Annual Meeting. It was difficult choosing among them to fill our approximately 50 oral, poster and roundtable sessions, and we had to reject some very interesting work. In this article I will give an overview of our 2008 program and offer some pointers that may be useful when you submit your abstract next year.

Our goal over the past several years has been to emphasize the “policy” aspect of CHPPD’s profile in APHA. We prioritized presentations that bring together sound scientific methodology, interesting findings, and policy implications for health care in the United States. With the extremely different approaches to health reform of the two presidential candidates, and the protracted difficulty getting agreement between Congress and the current administration over public health insurance expansion, we expect a lot of interest in presentations that deal with these issues. Other continuing areas of CHPPD focus are health disparities, vulnerable populations, and community partnerships.

Here are some of the highlights of our upcoming program. You can get the day and time for the sessions and read the abstracts online by going to www.apha.org/meetings and searching the scientific program by session number.

We will feature two sessions that review findings from the health reform experience in Massachusetts (sessions 3203.0 and 5145.0). Session 4171.0 will explore strategies to maintain insurance coverage for vulnerable children. Several sessions will focus on ways to reduce health disparities for vulnerable populations: 3022.0 focuses on culturally relevant health education materials; 3112.0 discusses ways to enhance access and reduce emergency room visits; 3205.0 focuses on rural populations, 4083.0 on inner city children, and 4346.0 on immigrant populations. Session 4168.0 is a special session describing the role of school-based health centers in meeting the needs of medically under-served children, and 4256.0 discusses the health care safety net. Several sessions will focus on chronic conditions (5148.0) including asthma (3204.0), cancer (3400.0), and HIV (3310.0).

Maintaining our public health focus, we will have sessions on building the public health work force (4015.0); assessment, planning and financing (4344.0); and community planning to improve maternal and infant health (5146.0). Concern about obesity continues, and we will have several sessions including strategies for prevention (4167.0 and 4255.0), intervention (4345.0), and measuring outcomes (3113.0).

One of the many reasons that CHPPD attracts such a strong array of abstracts is the diversity of subjects we include in the Section. This year we will have two important sessions on disaster and emergency preparedness (5036.0 and 5096.0), and continue our focus on the slow pace of recovery for children and families affected by Hurricane Katrina (4014.0 and 5039.0). One session will discuss the enhanced medical home for children, incorporating access to mental health and child development services (4169.0). Other CHPPD sessions describe the use of Web-based technology to reduce disparities (3402.0), health care as a civil right (5147.0), and, focusing on an important health policy issue, the value of Vitamin D for optimal health (3401.0). One session will feature five of the excellent abstracts we received from students (3202.0, discussing community-based research, planning and services).

All of these themes will be further featured in our poster sessions and roundtable. These presentation modalities provide opportunities for interaction with the presenters and networking with people that share your interests and priorities.