Call for papers: The 2013 Water and Health Conference: Where Science Meets Policy

The 2013 Water and Health Conference: Where Science Meets Policy will bring together experts from academia, industry, non-governmental organizations, government and foundations to provide an interdisciplinary perspective spanning science, policy, practice and economics. We are now accepting abstracts for poster and verbal presentations.

The submission deadline is April 30, and may be submitted via the conference website.

The deadline for early decision is March 15, which is intended to assist people who will need to seek visas.

2013 Main Conference Themes

• Hygiene and behavioral change
• M&E: local, global, and human right perspectives
• Institutions, finance, and sustainability
• Sanitation and health
• Water supply and quality: from catchment to consumer and back

Abstract Submission Guidelines

• Title: 150 characters
• Authors: 300 characters
• Presenter: 100 characters
• Text: 5000 characters, including spaces

Important links for details:

• Call for Papers
• Sign Up to Submit an Abstract
• Submit or Edit an Abstract
• Presenter Guidelines
• Propose a Side Event

More About the Conference

Bringing together academic research with policy, practice and networking events

The 2013 Water and Health Conference: Where Science Meets Policy, organized by The Water Institute at UNC, will consider drinking water supply, sanitation, hygiene and water resources in both the developing and developed worlds with a strong public health emphasis.

The 2013 Water and Health Conference: Where Science Meets Policy is accompanied by several exciting events before and after the conference. Don’t miss the opportunity to network with and learn from the unique array of national and international professionals!

 

Save the Date!

• The 2013 Conference will run from October 14th through the 18th.

Location:

William and Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

all content for this page comes from directly conference web pages

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Great Site: PLoS Medicine with great articles this month on Climate/ Heath / Ethics

 

PLoS Medicine is a   open-access medical journal – something we need to support if we are to make progress  on improving Global Health!

This month it  has two great articles  (among  many others) worth taking a look at.

 

 

Why Human Health and Health Ethics Must Be Central to Climate Change Deliberations

by Jerome Amir Singh

An overview:

(taken directly from site)

• The human health implications of climate change must be afforded greater prominence.
• Governments, the private sector, financiers, and society have a moral responsibility to practice socially responsible investment and to mitigate against the impact of climate change, particularly in relation to human health.
• Human health must be a core, not peripheral, focus in future climate change deliberations.
• The health community, led by health ministers, must play a central role in climate change deliberations.
• Health ethics principles must be afforded equal status to economics principles in climate change deliberations.

Connecting the Global Climate Change and Public Health Agendas

by Maria Nilsson, Birgitta Evengård, Rainer Sauerborn

An overview

(taken directly from site)

• Climate change is a public health problem. Evidence from many sectors shows substantial health impacts of climate change, particularly for the most vulnerable: the poorest, the youngest, and the oldest.
• Human health and climate change are closely connected. Within the global United Nations (UN) process, health is seen as the most direct component linking climate change and individual lives.
• Public health actions in relation to climate change are needed. Top-down advocacy on health and climate at the UN level needs to be mirrored by bottom-up public health actions that bring health and climate co-benefits.

About PLoS Medicine

“PLoS Medicine is the leading open-access medical journal, providing an innovative and influential venue for research and comment on the major challenges to human he

alth worldwide. We specifically seek to publish papers which have relevance across a range of settings and that address the major environmental, social, and political determinants of health, as well as the biological.”

Related articles

• Human Health Given Short Shrift in Climate Talks (scientificamerican.com)
• Climate change remains an urgent public health concern (eurekalert.org)

Course Announcement:Water and sanitation engineering from emergency towards development

The purpose of this course is to

• Train qualified and motivated engineers and scientists who might in their professional life encounter water and sanitation problems in situations of emergency and especially in humanitarian contexts;
• Offer continuing education to professional staff from emergency and development organisations involved in water and sanitation;
• Facilitate the integration of engineers and scientists in humanitarian operations;
• Make the participants aware of public health issues and of the close links between public health, water and sanitation in disaster-striken populations;
• Provide information on technical skills and institutional solutions specific to emergency situations.

 

 After the course the participants should be able to:

 

• Identify, formulate and analyse the complex relations and the problems posed by public health, water and sanitation;
• Pass on technical concepts and discuss them with health professionals as well as with industrial leaders, politicians, local and national administrators;
• Assess the situation and plan, implement and monitor a water and sanitation emergency programme in the context of a humanitarian operation.
• Better understand the institutional context of a humanitarian situation and design an emergency response, which involves long-term perspectives.

 

Coordination

Dr. Ellen Milnes
Centre d’hydrogéologie et de géothermie (CHYN)
Université de Neuchâtel
Rue Emile-Argand 11
2000 Neuchâtel
Tél: 032 718 25 94
ellen.milnes@unine.ch

 

Date

August 25th to September 1st 2012

More details

• • Objectifs
  • Participants
  • Programme
  • Language
  • Registration fees
  • Certification
  • Duration
  • Place
  • Registration and organisation

   

  Université de Neuchâtel – Avenue du 1er-Mars 26 – 2000 Neuchâtel – tél. +41 32 718 1000 – contact@unine.ch

sources: web site  & ” email press release”

 

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine wins 2009 annual Gates Award for Global Health

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine wins 2009 annual Gates Award for Global HealthTV footage and radio feed available to download – please see notes at end of this release The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has won the Gates Award for Global Health, and will receive $1 million in prize money.The award was established by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to recognise organizations that have made an outstanding contribution to improving global health, especially in resource-poor settings. The winners are chosen by a jury of international health leaders from more than 100 nominations from around the world, and the award is administered by the Global Health Council. The School is both the first academic institution to win the award and the first British winner.

London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

mapit

More at source: http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/news/2009/gatesaward.html

source for all content:  London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

‘For more than a century, the London School has trained the some of the world’s most outstanding public health leaders’, said Dr. Tachi Yamada, president of the Gates Foundation’s global health program. ‘The School’s commitment to leadership and cutting-edge research has made an immeasurable contribution to health in developing countries’.

Professor Sir Andrew Haines, Director of LSHTM, comments: ‘This award is excellent news for the School and a testament to the hard work, commitment and expertise of our staff and students.

‘We are delighted and proud to be honoured for the work we do which includes researching diseases that particularly afflict disadvantaged people around the world – such as malaria, TB, HIV/AIDS but also increasingly cancer, cardiovascular disease and mental disorders. Equally important is our work to build health systems and train health personnel in low income and post-conflict countries.

‘This award could not have come at a better time for us as it coincides with plans to expand the School’s popular distance learning programme. This programme has helped many talented people around the world to acquire the skills and expertise they need to improve public health. The prize money will enable us to extend that opportunity to many more through development of new courses and provision of scholarships’.

With its outstanding performance in the universities’ 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (a national exercise to evaluate the quality of research in all UK higher education institutions) and its flourishing teaching programmes, the School is a leading institution in the United Kingdom and worldwide for research and postgraduate education in global health. There are 3,500 postgraduate students from around 120 countries studying in London or by distance learning. Staff are involved in research collaborations in more than 100 countries. The School has a strong commitment to supporting the development of teaching and research capacity in low-income countries, with staff currently based at sites in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Sir Andrew will receive the award on behalf of the School in Washington, D.C., United States, at a special ceremony during the Global Health Council’s Annual International Conference on Global Health on 28 May 2009.

Ends.

For further information, or to interview Sir Andrew Haines, please contact Lindsay Wright or Gemma Howe at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Press Office on lindsay.wright@lshtm.ac.uk or gemma.howe@lshtm.ac.uk or +44 (0) 207 927 2073/2802

wildsingapore news: To save lives, an Indian doctor rethinks the toilet

To save lives, an Indian doctor rethinks the toilet

Sebastien Buffet Yahoo News 23 Aug 09;

STOCKHOLM (AFP) – By rethinking the humble toilet, Indian sanitation expert Bindeshwar Pathak has found a way that can save water — and lives — in developing countries.

For four decades, His Sulabh Sanitation Movement has equipped more than 1.2 million households with eco-friendly toilets and installed 7,500 public lavatories across India.

Yet almost three out of four Indians, or around 700 million people, still have no access to basic sanitation.

This leads to up to half a million deaths each year, Pathak, 66, told AFP at the World Water Week conference in Stockholm, where he was awarded this year’s Stockholm Water Prize for his groundbreaking work.

To lower the risk to human health, Pathak developed a twin-pit, pour-flush toilet known as the Sulabh, that uses a pair of tanks to store waste matter with no smell or soil pollution, pending recycling as fertiliser.

It uses significantly less water than a standard toilet, Pathak said.

“It requires only 1.0 to 1.5 liters to flush instead of 10 liters,” he said. “It saves trillions of litres of water each year.”

The idea is to discourage both open-air defecation and the use of bucket toilets — options that ramp up the risk of the spread of disease and diarrhoea.

“People have died of cholera cleaning the bucket toilets,” Pathak explained.

When a Sulabh is sold to households, its price is adjusted according to a family’s ability to pay. The poorest families pay 15 dollars (10 euros) whereas richer families can be asked to pay up to 1,000 dollars.

The Sulabh Sanitation Movement’s campaign to raise awareness of health issues has also seen more and more Indians prepared to pay user charges for its 7,500 public toilets.

Staffed 24 hours a day, they cost one dollar a month to use them by subscription — with an exemption for slum dwellers, women and children.

“For the whole month, you can go to the toilet, you can have a bath, you can drink water,” Pathak said.

The Sulabh has been exported to Afghanistan and Bhutan, and there are also plans to ship some to 15 other countries, most of them in Africa.

“I feel very happy because what we have been doing for the last 40 years, now it feels that we are going in the right direction,” Pathak told AFP.

As the winner of the Stockholm Water Prize, Pathak receives a cheque for 150,000 dollars (104,700 euros) in recognition of his work to conserve water and improve public health.

via wildsingapore news: To save lives, an Indian doctor rethinks the toilet.