FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
INDIANAPOLIS — More than 400 public health practitioners, academics and policymakers will gather Sept. 15 at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis for the 2016 Public Health Conference. The theme for this year’s event is “The Future of Public Health: The Integration of Policy, Practice and Research.”
The conference, which takes place at the IUPUI Campus Center, was organized by the Indiana Public Health Practice Council, a group composed of representatives from local and state health departments, universities, the IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health, policymaking bodies from around the state, and public health practitioners.
The conference facilitates collaboration among those in three key public health fields, allowing public health practitioners to learn what academic researchers are finding, enabling researchers to better understand what public health practitioners experience on a day-to-day basis and helping policymakers develop infrastructure that supports public health.
Keynote speakers are Dr. Camara Phyllis Jones, executive board president of the American Public Health Association, and Kerry Anne McGeary, senior program officer with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Jones is a family physician and epidemiologist whose work focuses on the impact of racism on the health and well-being of the nation. She is a member of the World Health Organization’s Scientific Resource Group on Equity and Health and the National Board of Public Health Examiners and recently completed service on the executive board of the American Public Health Association, the board of directors of the American College of Epidemiology and the board of directors of the National Black Women’s Health Project.
McGeary joined the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2013 as a senior program officer in the Research-Evaluation-Learning unit. Coming to the foundation after a distinguished career as a professor of health economics at Ball State University, Drexel University and the University of Miami, McGeary employs her background in health economics and health policy research to help the foundation achieve its mission and to assist its researchers in promoting a culture of health.
Jerome Adams, commissioner of the Indiana State Department of Health, will welcome participants.