Conference to tackle the health data puzzle
- By Wits University
The 12th INDEPTH Scientific Conference (ISC) will take place from 28-31 October 2013 at the Wits School of Public Health.
For the first time since its inception, the ISC will be partnering with Statistics South Africa (Stats SA). Further to this, the conference will be hosted by the School of Public Health at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits SPH), in collaboration with INDEPTH member Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems (HDSS) in South Africa.
The theme for this year’s conference is The contribution of INDEPTH Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems (HDSS) to strengthening National Health Information systems (NHIS) and will feature presentations using longitudinal data in conjunction with censuses, national surveys and NHIS. International keynote speakers include Dr Ties Boerma, Director of the World Health Organisation (WHO); Professor Richard Horton, Editor of The Lancet journal (UK), Professor Marcel Tanner, Director of Swiss TPH Switzerland, Dr Cyril Engmann, Senior Program Officer (Neonatal Health) at the Gates Foundation and discussants Timothy Evans (Director: Health, Nutrition and Population at the World Bank and Lisa Berkman from Harvard, USA. From across Africa, keynote speakers include Professor Fred Binka, Vice-Chancellor: University of Health and Allied Sciences, Ghana, Dr Alex Ezeh from the African Population and Health Research Centre in Kenya and Dr Osman Sankoh, Executive Director: INDEPTH Network.
ISC 2013 promises to be a major global gathering of demographers, epidemiologists, public health specialists, social scientists, and other scientific researchers from Africa, Asia, Oceania and other parts of the world to reach a common understanding on future directions in demographic and health research. It therefore provides the best platform to share experiences as well as discuss new and strategic directions within the framework of global developments in scientific research utilisation in low-and middle-income countries (LMICs). The conference will also examine emerging opportunities for generating, managing, analysing and sharing quality data, research methodologies and evidence. The ISC is the flagship activity of INDEPTH that has been held consistently since 2000 in rotation from one country to another across Africa and Asia.
INDEPTH is a pioneer in health and population research, providing robust answers to the most important questions in development. Through its global network of health and demographic surveillance system (HDSS) field sites in Africa, Asia and Oceania, it is the only organisation in the world capable of producing reliable longitudinal data not only about the lives of people in low- and middle-income countries, but about the impact on those lives of development policies and programmes.
For more information about the ISC visit: http://www.indepth-network.org/ISC.
To view the programme, click here
For more information contact Nicolette.Pingo@wits.ac.za or Baaba.johnson@indepth-network.org