President's column: Looking back at the 13th EUPHA conference Graz 10–12 November 2005

Abstract

Close to 800 public health researchers, practitioners and policy experts from 55 countries and all five continents participated in this year's conference of the European Public Health Association, entitled ‘Promoting the Public's Health—Reorienting health policies, linking health promotion and health care’. One key question guided the organizers: How can we, the European public health community, build effective capacities for sustained population-wide health improvement in our own countries and in a changing Europe? 1 The Graz conference presented eight keynote lectures and the traditional Ferenc Bojan Memorial lecture, 60 parallel workshops or oral sessions with over 460 presentations and about 200 poster presentations, beside a full-day pre-conference and numerous meetings of EUPHA sections, associations, and working parties. Looking back at the 13th EUPHA conference three preliminary conclusions can be drawn: 1. European public health is getting stronger both in the fields of scientific research and knowledge-based practice. This trend was already apparent in the previous EUPHA conferences in Dresden, Rome, and Oslo, and evidently confirmed in Graz it. 2. EUPHA's 10 Statements on the Future of Public Health in Europe2 express a balanced vision and clear directions for linking research, policy, and practice. Future public health can only be achieved if the whole society invests in it. Public health should form an integral part of the political agenda in all sectors. Public health research remains a solid basis for the development of public health practice and policy. Public health research should focus on the needs of policy and practice. Researchers should learn how to interact with politicians and practitioners. 3. Adequate public health capacity requires a solid knowledge base. Public health knowledge is the basic resource or ability to solve a wide range of health care and health promotion problems. To further develop public health according to the directions expressed in the 10 …