Title: 7TH ANNUAL PRE-APHA WORKSHOP ON COMMUNITY-BASED PRIMARY HEALTH CARE PRACTICAL STEPS TO ACHIEVE SUCCESSFUL PROGRAMS
Author:
Section/SPIG: International Health
Issue Date:
As a result of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the APHA Annual Meeting has been changed to Dec. 11-14 in Philadelphia. Consequently, we are also changing the date and venue of our Annual Workshop.
The Working Group on Community-based Primary Health Care (part of the IH Section of APHA) is pleased to announce that it will hold its annual day-long workshop in Philadelphia, Saturday, December 10, 2005, from 8:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m., the day before the opening of the APHA Annual Meeting. This is the seventh consecutive workshop that our Working Group has sponsored. We are still working to determine the location. There will be no formal charge, but we will be pleased to accept voluntary contributions. You do not have to be a member of APHA to attend, nor do you have to be registered for the APHA Annual Meeting.
This year, we are pleased to announce that Stanley Foster of Emory University and Warren and Gretchen Berggren, international public health consultants, will be leading our workshop. Both the Berggrens and Foster are recipients of the esteemed Lifetime Achievement Award in International Health given by the IH Section of APHA.
In the morning session, participants will strengthen their skills by using community-generated data to identify health issues and to identify implementation strategies. Data to be used are from a pastoral population in southern Ethiopia collected by the Liben District Team/Save the Children Woman Wise Child Survival Project. Unique features of this project include Bridge to Health Teams working at the community level, the training of birth attendants in life-saving skills, quality improvement of preventive and curative services, and community-based case management. Participants will have the choice of working with one of three sets of data: maternal health, facility services, and community services including community management of childhood illness. In a simulation of district-level planning, the participants will analyze data and discuss their findings within small groups.
Facilitators will include Lynn Sibley, a nurse-midwife and anthropologist from Emory's School of Nursing; Tedbab Degefie, project manager of the Liben WomanWise Project in Ethiopia, and Stanley Foster, professor of global health, Emory's School of Public Health.
In the afternoon session, the Berggrens will provide examples from their recent personal experiences in Mozambique and Haiti. The issues that they will address include:
· Difficulties that facility-based programs have in reaching out into the community;
· The tendency to focus on process rather than impact indicators;
· The tension between facility-based integrated management of childhood illness and the goal of expanding coverage of basic services within an underserved population; an
· The tension between the goal of reaching the poorest of the poor within the population and the goal of generating local income to ensure the long-term sustainability of primary health care programs.
Warren and Gretchen Berggren have had extensive field experience in Africa and Haiti, and they have worked with many international health organizations in leadership roles, most notably at the Hospital Albert Schweitzer in Haiti, Save the Children, and World Relief. They are currently providing technical support to community-based primary health care projects around the world, with a primary focus on Haiti.
Stan Foster is professor of global health at the Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University in Atlanta. He worked for many years with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in leadership roles in international health programs, most notably in smallpox eradication and in the strengthening of immunization programs. More recently, he has been involved in the teaching of international health and in providing technical support to community-based primary health care programs throughout the developing world.
We believe this will be an exciting participatory learning opportunity for those of us who are interested in and committed to community-based primary health care. As in the past, this workshop will be, in addition, an opportunity for networking and for nurturing nascent interests in community-based primary health care. Those new to community-based primary health care, including students, are welcome.
We hope you will save the date and make plans to attend. Feel free to share this with anyone you think might be interested. Space is limited to 70, so register now by sending an e-mail to our registrar, Mirlene Italien Perry, at <mitalien0409@yahoo.fr> and letting her know you plan to attend.
For further information, contact any of the three Workshop Coordinators:
· Paul Freeman at: <freeman.p.a@worldnet.att.net>.
· Mirlene Italien Perry at: <mitalien0409@yahoo.fr>.
· Henry Perry at: <henry@future.org>.
-- Henry Perry, E-mail: henry@future.org