PROMOTING THE PUBLIC'S HEALTH—Reorienting health policies, linking health promotion and health care. Conclusions drawn from the 2005 EUPHA conference in Graz

Abstract

The 13th European Conference on Public Health held from 10 to 12 November 2005 in Graz attracted some 900 public health researchers, policy experts and practitioners from all continents. A conference book1 highlighting the outcomes of what turned out to be a highly stimulating scientific meeting is going to be published by mid-November 2006. The annual EUPHA conferences seem to have a great potential to promote the professional discourse of the international public health community, though their contribution to the development of the field has never been assessed. This book is intended as a contribution to this discourse, as a part of the international public health process, and one that the readers will hopefully also find interesting and informative from the scientific point of view. Conference books are inherently a difficult genre. The editors of the Graz conference book have attempted to avoid publishing a conference report of merely a series of plenary speeches and oral presentations. Their aim was to capture the general spirit of the conference, summarize the main scientific content and communicate innovative ideas and visions for the future. The Graz conference addressed three broad questions: From the 5 plenary sessions, the 60 parallel sessions and over 200 posters it was concluded that the European Public Health community shares a fairly strong value and knowledge base related to the determinants of public health which, however, varies markedly between countries. Yet, in most countries there is a serious need to invest in capacity building, foremost in relevant …