1st Talking Public Health Around the World

This online conference brings together academics, clinicians, practitioners and others from a wide variety of fields, for a collaborative, multidisciplinary exploration of the ways in which the pandemic has impacted public health and healthcare communication. Abstracts are reviewed. Themes and issues for the conference include, but are not limited to:

Stream A: Public health and the pandemic

Educating and empowering the public is a significant challenge, in response to Covid-19. This includes the promotion of healthy lifestyles under lockdown, support for the work of heath agencies, and the optimal prevention strategies. What communication strategies can health authorities used to inform the public, and what difficulties do clinicians, practitioners and policy-makers face, when implementing these strategies? How has the pandemic impacted handling other health problems and hazards? How do local and national contexts shape education. interventions and policy initiatives? Digital methods of monitoring community health problems, and compliance vary: how do we encourage compliance and ensure privacy? How should we define effectiveness, and cost effectiveness? In light of what we have learned already from the pandemic, what heeds to change, in terms of foci, strategies and implementation? What are we neglecting?

Stream B: Communication in hospitals

Communication plays a critical role in hospital care. It enables and underwrites the quality of patient care. Effective communication is a significant element of patient safety, where ineffective communication is a main cause of poor patient health outcomes, and communication errors are a main cause of critical incidents. What are the communication issues, in emergency and acute care? What roles and function does communication have in end-of-life care? What are the complexities of communication in handover situations? What are the variants and issues for communication in different cultures and contexts? How can we address these problems, educate and train practitioners, and ensure better communication in clinical settings?

Stream C: Health disparities

What has the pandemic shown us about disparities in health outcomes? How do they vary with context, culture, or other factors? How may they be addressed, in the immediate context of the pandemic, and longer term? How can we build effective community partnerships to address these issues, and the associated health outcomes? What are the challenges, tensions and inequities in public health education, including those between public health costs and services, between health service providers and insurance companies, between public health and diversity in both wealthy and developing economies, and between health monitoring and surveillance, big data and privacy?