Editorial: David Pienaar
Welcome to the final PHASA newsletter of the year. 2009 has been another successful year for the national Public Health Association that culminates with our annual conference, bringing a very topical theme to South Africa’s sub-tropical city: The Millenium Development Goals. Measuring progress in Public Health in South Africa. These goals are close to many of our hearts and need serious discussion as we pass the mid-point of the time frame set to achieve the stated goals.

So, how are we doing? Well, the short answer is ‘not well’. The Durban conference is going to go some way towards examining the reasons why, and what we can do about it. We have four daily tracks, together highlighting 20 major subject areas which can be loosely categorised around:

• Reasons we’re struggling to achieve the MDGs [HIV&AIDS, Injuries and Violence, Alcohol abuse, Tobacco abuse…]
• Areas we need to work on to get things right [Health Systems, Health Care Financing, Human Resources, Health Rights and Community Governance…]
• Ways of monitoring our future progress [Data quality and Information Communication Technologies, Evaluation & Measurement…]

The many quality presentations and discussions, as well as high-powered experts offering their opinions, is going to make the delegates’ choice of sessions difficult!

Organising the conference has been a huge effort and we offer heartfelt thanks to our partner organisations for their endorsements and support: American Public Health Association & World Federation of Public Health Associations, International Epidemiological Association, Atlantic Philanthropies, MRC, Colgate Palmolive and IEA. All PHASA members who put in the hard work deserve special thanks, as well as the MRC conference organising team for their tireless efforts.

And so, we turn to this newsletter. Di McIntyre and Alex van der Heever share their expert, and conflicting, opinions on the shape and future of the National Health Insurance proposal, in the interests of broadening the debate and engaging further discussion. Most would agree that the existing health system requires a far greater input of resources and it is important to

debate where those resources are going to come from. However, an equally important debate is how to best allocate those resources and, very importantly, how to set up review systems that constantly assess whether the money is being well spent. In other words, is the new design going to result in improved health outcomes and can we demonstrate it?

Chiara Bodini, Ardigò Martino and Waasila Jassat, in an open letter, question the nature of ethical sponsorship within the Public Health domain and appeal to us to seek greater coherence between our espoused principles and the realities of running successful organisations.

Annette Gerritsen provides us with her regular review of recent highlights in the Public Health field. Muzi Zungu calls on Public Health professionals to support their theories with conspicuous public action and debate around relevant national health debates. Hanna-Andrea Rother raises issues of health and chemicals management, and the role for Public Health professionals.