We
extend our warm welcome to the participants in this largest ever IEA
Congress. We will have 16 keynote lectures, 43 symposia, 25 lectures
and 28 mini-symposia, as well as the traditional IEA regional
workshops. Over 5,000 abstracts will be presented, either in poster or
oral sessions. Additionally, we created 12 special mini-symposia from
selected abstracts. Delegates from diverse continents –
represented by the 5 keys in Clara Pechansky´s Recital
– will discuss key issues for Epidemiology in the
Construction of Health for All: Tools for a Changing World.
The
term Construction synthesizes the role of epidemiology in building
knowledge for improving public health. In our program, this theme will
include discussions on what colleagues from low and middle income
countries can learn from, as well as teach colleagues from high-income
countries; and on how epidemiology can inform public health to improve
health systems. The interfaces
between epidemiology, advocacy and policy will receive special
attention.
As
the Alma-Ata declaration is 30 years old this September, the concept of
Health for All in the conference theme has received great attention.
The Brazilian experience with a universal national health system,
completing in 2008 two decades of existence, will be spotlighted. But
the theme goes well beyond Brazil, covering issues such as the social
determinants of health, the Millennium Development Goals, primary
health care, and how to eradicate health inequities in terms of gender,
ethnic group and socioeconomic position.
The
essential methodological role of epidemiology – expressed by
the term Tools – will be discussed within the context of new
statistical methods, updates on nutritional epidemiology, advances in
the design of prospective studies and increasing options for data
linkage, to name just a few topics. The keynote of Nubia Munoz
– who will receive the first Sir Richard Doll Prize
– will describe the superb use of a whole array of
epidemiological tools in establishing the causal role of human
papilloma virus in cervical cancer, from early etiologic research to
the development and testing of preventive vaccines.
Finally,
the rapid progress that Brazil is undergoing, with its many inherent
contradictions, will provide a backdrop to the theme of a Changing
World. Our program highlights major world changes occurring in the
early 21st Century. The demographic, nutritional and epidemiological
transitions, global environmental changes, new pandemics, population
ageing and urban violence will be discussed in several sessions. Our
next IEA president, Neil Pearce, will specifically address the theme of
epidemiology in a changing world.
Maria
Inês Schmidt, Bruce B. Duncan and Cesar Victora
For the Organizing Committee