Title: IH Section Program at 2003 APHA Annual Meeting

Author:

Section/SPIG: International Health

Issue Date:

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Once again this year, the IH Section has a great program planned for the Annual Meeting in the picturesque venue of San Francisco, November 15-19, 2003. We received 348 abstracts that were reviewed by a panel of more than 100 peers. We accepted 100 abstracts for panel presentations and an additional 80 for poster sessions. In addition, we have 12 invited sessions and we have co-sponsored about 24 sessions from other Sections. See the complete program on the Web site, <www.apha.org>. HIV-related topics include sessions on antiretrovirals in Africa and on behavior change. Our Section confronts controversy with sessions on post-war reconstruction of the health system in Iraq, corruption in health systems, policies and practices of development agencies, US Foreign Assistance for health, SARS, and health workforce issues. We also cover issues of continuing interest, such as information systems, education and water supply, immunizations, benchmarking fairness in health reform, and measurement and evaluation. We got a strong response from students and developing country nationals to our Call for Abstracts. We accepted eight student abstracts for panel sessions. We were able to put together one poster session that is composed entirely of student submissions and had some that spilled over into other poster sessions. We also have one poster session dedicated to submissions accepted from developing country nationals—plus more in other poster sessions. Finally, IH is co-sponsoring a session on launching your career in international health with the Student Caucus.

--Marty Makinen