8th Annual Western Regional International Health Conference (WRIHC) as a means to increase health workers' engagement in war prevention efforts: A Case Study

The 8th Annual WRIHC, themed “War & Global Health: Transforming our Professions, Changing our World” was a multidisciplinary meeting that addressed the responsibility of those involved in global health (broadly defined, inclusive of social workers, clinicians, public health practitioners, and public policy analysts) to actively address war as a cause of negative health outcomes worldwide. In a multitude of sessions and workshops, which were broadly organized into six tracks,

1. Combatants & military populations 2. Vulnerable populations 3. Policy, human rights & social justice 4. War, society & the environment 5. Health professionals as peace-workers 6. The role of media and information in war & global health

Health professionals and students learned about the variety of ways in which they could engage professionally in preventing war, mitigating the effects of war and recovery and promotion of health in post-conflict settings.

In presenting this case study, we will focus on the sessions that were most highly attended and received the best feedback from participants. We will address which skill sets were determined to be most practical to develop and will incorporate some of the lessons learned from the conference process, including gaps identified and recommendations for future such conferences and training events.