In December 2006 at the annual APACPH conference in Bangkok,Thailand,the APACPH Early Career Network (ECN) hosted its second workshop entitled ‘Practical Research Skills in resource poor settings: chronic disease surveillance, capacity building and community mobilization to improve public health’. From all over the world, primarily the Asia Pacific Region, public health students, early career professionals, doctoral students as well as medical students decorated the room to hear from Dr.Ruth Bonita -former Director of Surveillance of Chronic Diseases at the WHO,Geneva and Dr K.R. Thankappan from the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute of Health Science Studies in Kerala, India.
Not only did participants have a chance to meet one another, but attendees also participated in interactive discussions around chronic disease and ways to equip and become equipped to address the health needs in their respective countries. Dr. Bonita and Dr. Thankappan created space for workshop attendees to actively participate in formulating and sharing ideas about addressing the most pressing health issues. Overall, after the workshop, participants were well informed and appreciated the wealth of knowledge and body of information that both Dr. Bonita and Dr. Thankappan offered.
A follow-up meeting of those workshop participants who were interested in playing a more significant role in the development of ECN was held during the conference. Committees were formed and tasks allocated to better streamline the network and distribute responsibility across the countries that ECN serves. The ECN development committee, as a whole, has already begun discussing and planning for the next APACPH Conference to be held in Japan. Publishing a dedicated ECN newsletter, raising financial support for ECN and facilitating ECN workshops are other areas of activity.
