OxHA news and highlights
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Message from the executive director
The countdown continues to the Annual Summit – in particular, preparations for the online aspects of the event are ongoing, with e-invites being sent to all former delegates at OxHA meetings and to many other ‘influencers’ worldwide. If you have not received your e-invite, let us know.
An OxHA Youth Summit was held in Brussels, at which nine young representatives of youth organisations including the European Youth Parliament, TakingITGlobal and the Novo Nordisk Youth Panel, engaged in a senate-style hearing with senior European figures in public health.
Many meetings with OxHA partners have taken place, including at major obesity-related events during a visit to the regional OxHA office at the AHPI in Sydney.
The project spotlight this month is on the Grand Challenges in Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases.
Stig Pramming
OxHA Annual Summit
Plans for the summit are going well, both in terms of delegates in Cape Town and also in terms of organising the online aspects of the event – for example, we have already had offers from delegates to ‘blog’ during the event.
PepsiCo has committed to a generous donation to the bursary fund, which will cover flights for delegates from around 15 developing countries.
E-invitations have been sent to all former delegates and many other potentially interested parties. Please register your interest in watching the summit and joining in the debate online, at www.3four50.com, and ask your colleagues and friends to do so as well! Encouraging participation from beyond Cape Town is an important part of re-conceiving OxHA’s diverse coalition into a true ‘virtual alliance’ that will exist beyond the annual summit.
Outreach and partnerships
Regional WHO meeting on implementation of WHO strategy on diet and physical activity for countries in the Western Pacific Rim.
- OxHA (Stig Pramming) and the World Diabetes Foundation were present at the meeting as observers and were asked to present the respective organisations. The legal framework for regulations, use of domestic law, involvement of all stakeholders, banning of advertising fast food to children, and globalisation were discussed during four very intensive days.
- A possible collaboration between OxHA and several of the countries was discussed, especially on how to get industry positively involved.
MondayMorning
- OxHA is participating in a user-driven healthcare project in Denmark, which has been initiated in cooperation with MondayMorning and a variety of Danish healthcare stakeholders. OxHA primarily participates in the working group on workplace health, where unions, corporations and other stakeholders have been surveyed with a view to identifying the legal, cultural, ethical and financial barriers to workplace health promotion.
Geneva Social Observatory Round Table on Diabetes in the Workplace
- Geneva Social Observatory is holding a multi-stakeholder dialogue on Diabetes and Social Responsibility across three roundtables – Christine Hancock attended the first roundtable, on diabetes and related chronic diseases in the Workforce. OxHA Board member, Derek Yach, gave the keynote presentation, and workgroups looked at the implications for the workforce and for the employers, as well as putting diabetes on the global agenda. A second roundtable (taking place at the same time as the OxHA Summit) will look at the various workplace stakeholders: HR, health & safety, occupational health & others. The final roundtable, in January, aims to develop policy recommendations. Further details can be found on the Geneva Social Observatoy website.
Association of British Insurers
- The Association of British Insurers represents 400 companies in the UK insurance industry. Paul Mayer and Christine Hancock had a useful introductory discussion with the Director General and heads of health and consumer relations concerning insurance’s role in chronic disease prevention. The next steps are for OxHA to meet with two of their committees: Health Insurers and Medical Health Risk. We agreed in principle to host jointly a discussion aimed at mapping the structures and issues that block effective involvement of the insurance industry in risk-factor reduction in the face of increasing diabetes and chronic disease costs and losses in general.
Johnson & Johnson
- Johnson & Johnson has committed to fund a workshop between OxHA / ICN / DENOSA on educating nurses in risk-factor reduction in South Africa. This training will equip nurses with basic knowledge to be applied with their clients, families and in their communities.
PR
As part of OxHA’s PR activity, we are closely monitoring the media to find articles on chronic diseases or their associated risk factors to which we can react. This month, we have had letters to the editor published concerning:
- the failure of insurance companies to prioritise prevention rather than medication (Business Week);
- response to a column by Patrick Butler, noting that if we are to solve the great health challenge of chronic disease in the 21st century, we must focus on prevention rather than management or treatment (The Guardian, Society section online).
Links to these are found on the OxHA website.
In addition the Youth Summit in Brussels [link] generated OxHA coverage.
Our next story will centre on our economics paper, Chronic disease: an economic perspective (by Marc Suhrcke, Rachel Nugent, David Stuckler and Lorenzo Rocco), and is planned to go out the week before the summit.
Christine Hancock has recently been interviewed on Colourful Radio, a digital radio channel for young black people in the United Kingdom. She spoke about prevention of chronic disease in the community, particularly the importance of tackling the three risk factors.
News from Sydney
A number of developments have occurred this month in Australia:
Visit by Stig Pramming
- The second meeting of the Obesity Forum, arranged by Senator Barnett and sponsored by Novo Nordisk, took place in the senate building in Canberra on 18 October. Surveys from Australasia were presented, showing the fast rate of growth in overweight in Australia that is bringing the country up to the same level as the United States. Effective interventions were discussed and many interesting programmes have been initiated – 170 in one state alone. The Sports Commission has initiated an after-school programme for children to become physically active.13,000 teachers have already been trained, and positive results have been demonstrated in the levels of activity – a major step forward in creating a healthier nation. The advertising industry launched a codex for marketing and advertising restrictions for children in all media. The industry was keen to police this and offered further talks on how they could be helpful. A report on the costs of obesity was launched at the meeting (click here >> for more information).
- Stig spoke at a dinner with the Parliamentary Diabetes Group in Australia at which the Minister of Health, Tony Abbott, also participated.
Justice Terry Sheahan, the President of the NSW Workers Commission, is convening a working group on behalf of OxHA in the Asia Pacific region. It will explore and develop a framework on how health policy and legal policy can interact to create workplace and broader physical environments that nurture health and inhibit obesity and chronic diseases.
Design
Professor Steve Leeder (University of Sydney and the head of the Design workstream) is involved in planning to develop and test a new index – the Urban Health Index (UHI) – of the health of urban communities. The UHI will enable planners, developers and citizens to have a benchmark around which they can work together more easily to achieve health prosperity for new development. He is assembling a ‘linkage’ research grant application (in which industry and academia combine as linked partners) to go to the Australian Research Council. He is currently seeking partners in this initiative.
OxHA Project Spotlight: Brussels Youth Summit
The OxHA Youth strand continues to progress towards the creation of a lasting legacy of awareness and lifestyle and behaviour change, one aspect of which is encouraging policymakers to incorporate the perspective of young people when considering new initiatives.
In Brussels, nine young people representing organisations linked within the OxHA youth network (including the European Youth Parliament, TakingITGlobal and the Novo Nordisk Youth Panel) engaged in a senate-style hearing on issues of health with Mr John Bowis MEP (host), Mr Erdem Erginel, Commission for Health, Professor Suvi Virtanen from the Finnish Public Health Institute, Mr Massimo Vergnano, president of Sudler & Hennessey Europe (sponsor).
With the Commission drafting a new health strategy presently and the new Germany Presidency prioritising preventative health on their agenda for the year, the time for dialogue between youth and policy makers – which was encouraged at the hearing – is apt.
The event brought a young person’s perspective in the development of health policy and demonstrated a best case study via film on how other groups of young people can do similar exercises with their regional, national or local decision-makers.
A press release about the summit can be found on the OxHA website. More information will be posted soon on our website, or contact Michelle McMahon, michelle@equatormedia.co.uk.
Publications
An article mentioning the Oxford Health Alliance has been published in the American Journal of Public Health – ‘The answer to diabetes prevention: science, surgery, service delivery or social policy?’, by Ruth Colagiuri, Stephen Colagiuri, Derek Yach and Stig Pramming, is in the September edition and can be viewed online.
Award nomination
OxHA has been nominated for WHO’s ‘Counteracting Obesity’ award, in the ‘intersectoral cooperation’ category. The nomination was made by Oxfam.
Project spotlight: Grand Challenges update
The Oxford Health Alliance is conducting a study with the University of Toronto to identify the Grand Challenges in Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases, which will focus attention on the diseases, risk factors and possible approaches to address these conditions, including prevention, diagnosis and treatment options.
We are currently in the midst of Round 1 of the study and we are analysing the responses from over 100 International Panel Members. We are using the Delphi methodology which uses a semi-structured process of building group consensus on a specific judgment issue through three rounds of email interactions with the International Panel of experts. Round 1 is focused on content acquisition and problem identification while the subsequent two rounds are devoted to consensus building. We continue to receive responses with the aim of having 150 Panel Members by the end of this Round. The criteria we used in selecting members of our panel included involvement as a recognised chronic non-communicable disease stakeholder in a related discipline or specialty at a senior or highly experienced level. Special consideration was also given based on gender and geographical distribution. We have also established an Executive Committee and a Scientific Board of highly distinguished individuals who will provide guidance and validate the panel’s findings. Preliminary Round 1 results will be presented at the OxHA 2006 Summit in Cape Town.
Further information can be found on the OxHA website or contact Deepa Persad (deepa.persad@utoronto.ca).
Global headlines – the OxHA Alliance Alerts
Highlights of recent Alerts include:
- A new non-profit website, www.walkit.com, has been launched to encourage people to consider walking as a healthy (as well as environmentally friendly) way of getting around London. By entering a street name, postcode or place of interest for the start and end points, people can access a map as well as the most pedestrian-friendly directions for their journey. It will also tell people (roughly) how many calories they can expect to burn on the walk.
- From February 2007, smoking will no longer be permitted in stations, museums and shops. Cafes, clubs and restaurants will see the ban come into force in January 2008. This Alert includes comment from Professor David Matthews.
If you would like to comment on an Alert, or if you identify a story that could be incorporated on our site as an Alliance Alert, please email info@oxha.org.
Upcoming dates
OxHA members are encouraged to email info@oxha.org with any important upcoming events that they would like highlighted here and on OxHA’s website calendar.
November 2006
Diabetes Awareness Month 2006
14: World Diabetes Day [link]
16–17: Ministerial Conference on Counteracting Obesity (WHO Regional Office for Europe), Istanbul, Turkey [link]
20: Universal Children's Day
20–22: OxHA Annual Summit, ‘Health in transition: working together’ [link]
23–25: The Everyday Challenge of Prevention – From Risk Factors to Effective Intervention, Sophia-Antipolis
Contacting OxHA
The OxHA secretariat is located in central London.
1st Floor, 28 Margaret Street
London
W1W 8RZ
United Kingdom
Tel: + 44 (0)20 7637 4330
Fax: + 44 (0)20 7637 4336
Email: info@oxha.org