23 February 2012

Public Health Association of South Africa

Represents the interests of the public health community in South Africa. It promotes greater equity in health for all South Africans by advocating equitable access to effective health care and the basic conditions necessary to achieve health.

conference

PHASA conference

Since PHASA’s inception in 2000, we have hosted a biennial conference. In 2008, the PHASA Executive took a decision to hold annual conferences, alternating these between major urban centres and smaller towns in more rural provinces.

Through our annual conferences, PHASA brings unique and objective perspectives to national and international debates on public health and development issues. The conference also fulfils a networking and capacity building function for our constituency and advocates for a comprehensive approach to disease prevention, health promotion and protection, and inter-sectoral action to address the social determinants of health. 

The 2011 PHASA Conference

The theme of the 2011 PHASA conference is: “Closing the health equity gap: Public health leadership, education and practice”. This theme will enable us to review the progress that South Africa has made in achieving equity in health status, health care, the social determinants of health and access to resources. Speakers will include policy-makers, leading local and international academics and representatives of international organisations, such as the World Health Organization and the World Federation of Public Health Associations. The conference tracks primarily relate to the theme of health equity or its counter-side of health inequities or health disparities. Parallel workshops will precede the main conference, with participants spoiled for choice, and with topics ranging from “Achieving equity through inter-sectoral action on health”; “Monitoring and evaluation of health inequities” through to “Intermediate epidemiological and biostatistical methods”. This 7th PHASA conference will be held in Gauteng (Sandton) from 28 – 30 November 2011.

The 2010 PHASA Conference

The theme of the 2010 conference was: “Healthy environments, healthy people and public health advocacy”. The theme both expanded and complemented the 2009 PHASA conference theme of examining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from a public health perspective. The 2010 conference, with its core focus on the environment, people’s health and advocacy, demonstrated that public health is inextricably linked to international debates regarding global warming, climate change and environmental sustainability. The conference tracks included abstract driven sessions on: environmental and occupational health; community action and best practices; social determinants of health, policy and health equity; communicable diseases and public health implications; non-communicable diseases and public health implications; global health and public health advocacy; and health systems research and measuring public health. Eight skills-building workshops preceded the conference, focusing on diverse topics such as health rights and health system reforms, alcohol use and its impact, and public health training.