Day 3 – 48th APACPH Conference in Teikyo University in Tokyo

It is Day-3 of the 48th APACPH Conference, it started off with the Third Plenary Symposium – Creating a healthy future with competent professionals: How shall we educate them at School of Public Health? We were fortunate to have four distinguish scholars sharing their experience. Dr Peter Berman from Harvard University started the session with his talk on Advanced Professional Education for Public Health Leaders: Developing the Harvard DrPH. It was followed by his colleague Dr Murray Mittleman who spoke on Reform of Master of Public Health courses at Harvard. Wanicha Chuenkongkaew from Mahidol University then talked on Transformative education for public health professionals in Asia-Pacific Network on Health professional Education Reform (ANHER). Dr Mariko Inoue from Teikyo University ended the Plenary Symposium with her piece on Competency-based education in schools of public health: Challenges facing the creation of a healthy future.

The Forth Plenary Symposium – Universal Health Coverage as Sustainable Development Goals in the Asia-Pacific Regions started off with the talk by Xu Ke from the World Health Organization – Western Pacific Region on About regional UHC action framework in the Western Pacific Region and was followed with Dr Masamine Jimba from the University of Tokyo talk on Competency of public health professionals to achieve Universal Health Coverage: the APACPH perspective. Osamu Kunii from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria talk on The Global Fund’s role in ending epidemics and achieving UHC and the last speaker, Peiyu Wang from Peking University continued with Education for the high level health professionals to increase their competency.

There was also a special lecture by Colin Binns from Curtin University and Wah Yun Low from University of Malaya on Publishing and Communication of Public Health Advances in the 21st Century. There were four symposium sessions, fourteen oral and poster sessions, which were run concurrently throughout the rest of the day. The symposiums was on Health science from a statistical perspective; Building a system to prevent and control antimicrobial-resistant infectious diseases in Asia and the Pacific; Potential for data analysis to support sustainable health financing; and History Toward Universal Health Coverage: The case of Japan.

The fourteen oral sessions includes Infectious Diseases; Health Policy and Economics 1; School Health: Child and Adolescent health; Health Policy and Economics 2; Ageing; Young researcher’s and students’ session 1; Maternal and Child Health/Women Health 1; Health Promotion and Mental Health; Tobacco Control; Rural and Island Health/Injury Prevention; Non-Communicable Diseases; Environmental Health; Disaster; and Public Health related topics.

The fourteen poster sessions includes Non-Communicable Diseases; Maternal and Child Health/Women’s Health 1; Environmental Health 2; Mental Health; Social Determinants of Health; Injury Prevention/Road Safety; Rural and Island Health; Infectious Diseases; Maternal and Child Health/Women’s Health 2; Dental Hygiene and Oral Cancer Prevention; Public Health Law and Ethics; Young researcher’s and student’s session; and Public health related topics.

The participants ended the day with dinner party and drinks provided by the Teikyo University. There were also a Karate Demonstration and a Musical Presentation.