The EUPHA conference 2004: A quest for context

When the European Public Health Association (EUPHA) met to its twelfth annual conference 2004, the scope was broad. Fresh ideas for a revival of a comprehensive social hygiene were present in all plenary sessions and in most of the very varied parallel sessions, where papers from all over Europe and even beyond were presented. Throughout the whole conference there was a positive atmosphere, what also only could be expected, when people meet and all share the same view: i.e. that public health work is the main road for coping with present and future group level health problems.

The venue of the meeting was the Oslo conference centre in downtown Oslo, where auditoriums and nearby hotels accommodated almost 700 participants. The keynote speakers had been carefully selected and the quality of their lectures could only be ranked on a scale from brilliant to excellent.

Often epidemiological papers on public health conferences vary between mere counting to inspiring results of lasting value, emerging from exciting materials and new methods. Or they range from confirmations of commonplace knowledge to studies staged to give scientific support to political decisions already taken. Tendencies of this sort could be observed also here, but the scientific committee had obviously done a good job to compose an attractive programme of good quality. Abstracts were published in European Journal of Public Health 2004; 14: number 4 (Supplement, December 2004.)

The main title of the conference was «Urbanisation and health». Perhaps the outcome of the conference more was about the challenges of globalisation, and this was also the title of the introductory keynote speech given by the former Norwegian prime minister and WHO Secretary General, dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland.

The plenary session speech by professor Johannes Siegrist from Düsseldorf covered the ever pending questions on social inequalities in health in Europe with a challenging subtitle: from explanation to prevention. In this and in other speeches a clear and strong wish came to sight; to shift from an internal medical perspective to an active approach to society and to the physical and social context of medical issues. So e.g. themes like health aspects in modern city planning and the usefulness of historical experiences from the European 19th century urbanisation were on the agenda.

The shift in public health in direction of active health promotion also was a core issue at the conference. Graz in Austria will host the 2005 EUPHA conference on November 10.-12., and then health promotion will be a main topic.

New president of the EUPHA is professor Gunnar Tellnes from Oslo.