Information on the first of three APHI-OxHA seminars held in 2006.
Policy responses to contemporary health issues: sustainability
Date: Tuesday 23 May
Introduction
Economic growth has brought tremendous benefits to many countries in recent decades. In 1960, 40% of the world’s people lived on less than a dollar a day. By 2000, that portion had been halved. In the first quarter of 2004, the economic growth rate of nearly every emerging economy was higher than in the same quarter of 2003, and foreign direct investment in these economies was the fourth highest in the past 13 years. Poverty remains, of course, and the benefits of these gains have not been equally distributed. Concerted policy is needed to correct that problem, but the engine of growth is firmly bolted to the economic manifold of most developing nations.
But there are serious unintended side effects of this growth. Many of these manifest in relation to health – global warming, excessive proximity of humans to farm animals and heightened risk of zoonotic diseases such as bird flu, and a pandemic of illness associated with smoking, eating too much and exercising too little. Is it possible to find a compatible path between development (with its health gains) and development (with its health losses)? If so, what is the responsibility of the health professions in this matter?
Speakers and topics
The human race: extinction or a sustainable future? >>
- Emeritus Professor Bob Douglas AO, Chair, Australia 21
Environmental change and risks to human health: why 'sustainability' matters >>
- Professor Tony McMichael, director, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University
How should public health respond to the challenge of sustainability? >>
- Professor Stephen Leeder AO, director, Australian Health Policy Institute at the University of Sydney and co-director of the Menzies Centre for Health Policy
The Chair of the seminar was Associate Professor Ruth Colagiuri, Director, The Diabetes Unit, Australian Health Policy Institute at the University of Sydney