Greetings! We are excited to announce our 2017 Global Health Conference entitled, The Effect of Climate Change on the Health of the World’s Most Vulnerable Populations. Environmental determinants of health, such as clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food and secure shelter, are all affected by climate change. According to the World Health Organization, it is predicted that in the next two decades, climate change will significantly increase the cost of health globally due to its effects on basic human needs, such as agriculture, water, and sanitation. Areas affected most by climate change will include developing countries with weak health infrastructure. This conference will focus on implementing clinical knowledge in the face of medical challenges caused by climate change, as well as the role of the medical professional in advocacy to address climate change.
Our Keynote Speaker is Dr. Sten Vermund, M.D., Ph.D., the Amos Christie Chair in Global Health, Director of the university-wide Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health since 2005, and, more recently, the Vice President for global health of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. For the past two decades, Vermund has focused on global health issues. In developing countries, where Pap smears are not routine, his team promulgated a technique using acetic acid to visually detect cervical lesions and built a major screening program in Zambia that has become a global training center for individuals from more than 20 countries. In 2000, he founded the Centre for Infectious Disease Research, now one of Zambia’s largest NGOs, which currently supports more than 330 clinics that play an instrumental role in the prevention of maternal-fetal HIV transmission and the implementation of antiretroviral therapy. He also founded Friends in Global Health in 2006, an NGO in Mozambique and Nigeria that has provided HIV-related care to over 140,000 individuals. His recent work includes research on HIV prevention in intravenous drug users in Pakistan; cervical cancer prevention at Tanzanian HIV clinics; HIV prevention in China in men who have had sex with men; and maternal-fetal HIV transmission in Nigeria.
This year, we have chosen to donate our proceeds from the conference to Partners in Health (PIH), and organization that has established longitudinal health care centers and resources for developing countries. In particular, their presence in Haiti, a country which has been severely devastated by multiple natural events, most recently Hurricane Matthew, has had tremendous impact on the health and well-being of the most vulnerable population.
The conference will be held at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine on January 21, 2017.
Please visit our website www.ucfglobalhealth.org to register and for more information.
We welcome inquiries at directors@ucfglobalhealth.org.