EUROPEAN PUBLIC HEALTH CONFERENCE EUROPEAN PUBLIC HEALTH CONFERENCE MALTA2012 MALTA2012 004 Welcome 009 Plenary speakers 024 Pre-conferences 038 Main conference 131 Maps 137 Social programme 138 About Malta 142 Partners 144 ICC/ISC/EPH Conference Office 145 Organising Commitee 146 Conference A-Z CONTENTS Printed by Print It Design by Matthew Spiteri 3 MALTA2012 CHARMAINE GAUCI JULIAN MAMO President of the Malta Association of Public MALTA 2012 Health Medicine Conference Chair The dramatic achievements of Public Health in the 20th century have improved our quality of life by Dear participants of the 5th European Public Health Conference being held in Malta, increasing life expectancy, reducing world wide infant and child mortality, and by eliminating or reducing many communicable diseases. However this far from covers the emerging problems we see today. Greetings to all our participants from all those with Public Health at heart in Malta. We wish you a very warm welcome to our country and to our conference. The beginning of the twenty-first century provided an early preview of the health challenges that our world will be facing in the coming decades. Challenges which already exist include obesity, health Our scientific committee has chosen the overall theme of the conference with great care. All Inclusive disparities, toxic environments, climate change, non communicable and chronic diseases and emerging Public Health can be read in a number of ways. Certainly, we wish that all researchers, public health threats such as antimicrobial resistance and bioterrorism. There are various hidden vulnerabilities professionals, policy makers and students with an interest in public health will feel that Europe’s largest which determine the future health status such as health inequalities, which need to be tackled. annual conference on Public Health is theirs too and that they will make it their own. With public health making major advances, expectations are high, hence public health is expected to be We also note the growing multitude of areas within the very wide category that is public health – from prepared to address and provide solutions to the wide range of problems and challenges to human well- genomics to occupational health, from ageing to infections, and we naturally wish to see the full range of being and overall health. This is today’s new public health, which, whilst continuing to protect health and these brought to light at the conference with novel approaches and recent research being demonstrated prevent diseases, is also about promoting physical, mental and social well being. It is the fundamental within each. duty of every government to promote and protect the health of the public. However, this can only be achieved through multi-sectoral collaboration whereby all of society is engaged. However, All Inclusive Public Health is also about students alongside policy makers. It’s about money matters and relationships. It’s about Europe and its neighbours. It was originally our wish to bring to the Public health associations can play a critical role by participating in the formulation of policies and fore some of the more traditional and core aspects of public health and re-iterate their importance within strategies and acting as advocates by providing an independent, non-partisan voice on public health the workings of public health today. Topics such as family relationships, basic literacy, employment and issues. The Malta Association of Public Health Medicine is committed to be an advocate for public health jobs, poverty and housing: these and others remain central to the health of the public, to their risks and and adopt a leading role in bringing all of society together to tackle the challenges which face us now as liabilities. well as those faced by future generations. Our subthemes too demonstrate the way we are thinking: Few, Small or different – Inequalities in What we will present in this conference is the new public health. We know that evidence-based public Europe’s health is very much close to home here in tiny Malta. The European countries with the highest health has been generally accepted as a ‘needle’s eye’ for what is worthwhile doing. Research will proportion or percentage of non-native residents are small nations or microstates. According to a recent remain the solid basis for development of public health which is based on the needs of public health. New York Times report, ‘Malta has the highest ratio of immigrants per capita of any European Union However, having evidence available is not enough. We need to have the ‘lift off’ whereby this evidence is member’. We look into this from the migrant’s perspective in our conference. transformed into public health polices and strategies and followed through implementation. Research is essential to decisions in public health and to its development. We were able to lay due We hope that this conference will be another milestone towards blending policy, research and practice emphasis on this in Research Across Health: Services, Sectors and Policies. It is not our intention to among public health professionals, politicians, policy makers and implementers, across different separate the research from the rest of public health but rather, to highlight aspects of research within disciplines and society as a whole for the benefit of all. the different settings. We are proud to have worked as team in partnership with EUPHA to bring this conference to Malta and Mind, Body and Spirit – a multifaceted approach to health is an obvious choice for a subtheme under the welcome everyone to our small island...small but with a big heart and surpassing dedication. overall theme though we were keen to highlight Mind and Spirit over Body! Welcome to MALTA At academic level and at policy level, health determinants are important and we felt the need to highlight this in Technology and environment – getting smart with health determinants which also gives due focus to two rapidly growing areas within public health. 4 5 MALTA2012 Behaviour and its change are all important public health and we spend limitless time and efforts studying this and learning to modify habits. In Life choices – population, economic activity and lifestyle we will share our efforts and continue to seek out ways to make public health interventions more effective. For European health policy, Malta 2012 is a significant landmark. Having just established agreement across European states for the World Health Organisation’s Europe 2020 – a Health Policy for Europe, Zsuzsanna Jakab, Regional Director of the European Office is set to launch this policy in Malta during a special plenary session at our conference. European public health history in the making at our WALTER HELMUT conference in Malta! RICCIARDI BRAND We have included some novel public health partners in our plenary sessions – the EU Commission for ASPHER Agriculture and Rural Development, the American Association for Retired Persons (the world’s largest EUPHA NGO), the Roma people and the Migrant Centre in Malta are all represented. President President A special plenary session organised by the Executive Agency for Health and the Consumer looks at the Funding- Research-Policy implementation cycle and seeks to understand how better to link the three in a more purposeful and pragmatic approach to the funding of much needed research. The European Public Health Association (EUPHA) and the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER) are very pleased to welcome you to the 5th joint conference combining the New too is our approach to posters – all actively presented for discussion in short oral sessions with 20th annual EUPHA meeting and the 34th annual ASPHER meeting. moderators. Again the European Public Health Conference has proven by its programme to be the most important We hope our programme will stimulate you while our Malta climate and settings will provide you with a Public Health Conference in Europe. comfortable environment in which you may participate actively. We are very grateful to the Malta Association of Public Health Medicine (MAPHM) to organise this In a difficult economic climate, we are extremely grateful to our sponsors and to the organizations that conference in Malta. have joined us in this great venture. The numerous committee members, helpers and collaborators are very much thanked here and know we could not manage this without them. Our heartfelt appreciation This year’s motto of “All inclusive public health” combines to look at the different determinants of health to all. and the necessary health-in-all policy approaches to tackle those determinants. A successful conference to all! The breadth of this motto is covered in the different plenary sessions that bring together high-level representatives from the different areas of Public Health in Europe. Policy makers, researchers and representatives of the civil society have at this conference the unique possibility to exchange information, knowledge and ideas about how public health should develop further in Europe. In the light of the ongoing financial crises it is even more important to communicate Public Health to the wider society. The pre-conferences, sessions and workshops give an excellent opportunity to get an update on the “state of the art” research in the different areas of public health in the European region. We are sure that the inspiring atmosphere in the island of Malta will help to foster the discussions about how an “all inclusive public health” can be achieved in Europe. 6 7 MALTA2012 Professor of Social Insurance, Head of the Division of Insurance Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, leads a large research group and is PI of several research projects, using both epidemiological and qualitative methods. President of the EUPHA Section on Social Security and Health, she is engaged in extensive international collaboration and her research KRISTINA covers risk factors for sick leave/disability pension, ALEXANDERSON consequences of being on sick leave/disability pension/sickness present, factors affecting return to work, sickness certification practices as well as theoretical and methodological aspects in these areas.