HSPH to Host Symposium with APHA about Community-Based Health Care
HSPH members have a rare opportunity to kick off the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA) with a free symposium co-sponsored by APHA at the school on November 11 and 12.
In 1978, the World Health Organization sponsored the International Conference on Primary Health Care in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan. Representatives of more than 100 ministries of health attended, and they described a goal in which everybody in the world would attain a level of health that would permit them to lead socially and economically productive lives by 2000. They named that goal "Health for All." The conference reinforced the concept of community-based health care as a fundamental means through which health, especially among poor populations, can be improved.
Since 1978, community-based health care systems have been credited with helping many people, but they also have been overshadowed by programs that promote specific interventions, such as an individual drug therapy. Now, 22 years after the Alma-Ata attendees stated a desire for "Health for All," HSPH has invited some of the field's foremost thinkers to review primary health care situations around the world. The symposium is entitled "Community-Based Health Care: Lessons from Bangladesh to Boston" on November 11 and 12. All HSPH members are welcome; students particularly are encouraged to come.
The symposium was organized by the HSPH Office of Alumni Programs and is hosted by the Harvard School of Public Health Alumni Association, The Working Group on Community-Based Primary Health Care--a Committee of the International Health Section of APHA, and Management Sciences for Health. Attendance is free, but interested parties must RSVP Catherine Fratianni at cfratian@hsph.harvard.edu or 2-2401. The Rockefeller Foundation has underwritten the symposium.
"The goal of the symposium is to ask people what they perceived has worked or hasn't worked with community-based primary health care systems since Alma-Ata," said John Wyon, professor emeritus in the Department of Population and International Health and chair of The Working Group on Community-Based Primary Health Care, APHA.
Wyon hopes to encourage a healthy exchange of experience among primary care professionals. After discussing the history of the topic, the symposium will present an analysis of the case of Bangladesh, which in the past 20 years has evolved a remarkable public/private partnership in the promotion of community health. It will describe cases from other low-income countries and then provide a comparative analysis of the impact of community-based models in the United States.
Expected speakers include: Henry Perry and Warren and Gretchen Berggren of the Albert Schweitzer Hospital, Haiti; Abbas Bhuriya of the International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh; Mushtaque Chowdhury of the Bangladesh Rural Advance Committee; Paul Farmer of HMS, Partners In Health; Hugh Fulmer of the Center for Community Responsive Care, Boston; Philip Hagen of the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN; William Keck of the Akron Ohio Health Department; Judith Kurland of Public Health Service, Boston; Joyce Lashof of UC Berkeley; Deborah Prothrow-Stith of the Division of Public Health Practice, HSPH; Jon Rohde of Management Sciences for Health; Carl Taylor of Johns Hopkins University; Henry Taylor of the Department of Public Health, West Virginia; John Wyon; and others.
"The discussions that result from this symposium can make major
contributions to building future primary care programs," said Wyon.
