265885 Challenging Assumptions on Effective Prevention and Promotion in Public Health

Tuesday, October 30, 2012 : 3:30 PM - 3:50 PM

Akshaya Arya, BASc MD CCFP FCFP DLitt , Global Health Office, University of Western Ontario, Kitchener, ON, Canada
The session will be focused on challenging some universal truths in Public Health. We will briefly review the Impact of some Prevention measures (financial and otherwise) on health systems. We shall examine some errors, over and underreactions in the past to fears that enable these. We then explore reasons this might be allowed or encouraged to happen, fallacious assumptions underlying such beliefs, and heuristics, which enabled quick, but faulty decisions. A few examples of direct manipulation of evidence both in production and dissemination will be discussed, with those with hidden interests or biased agenda. Examples cited may include HPV and flu vaccines, control of cardiovascular risk factors and approaches to mental health.

Learning Areas:
Clinical medicine applied in public health
Public health or related public policy

Learning Objectives:
1.To illustrate, with examples, public health decisionmaking that has gone wrong in the recent past at substantial human, or financial cost 2.To describe manipulation of evidence and faulty logic that enabled such decisions 3.To give a framework to a more robust, sustainable and effective way of approaching such population health decisions

Keywords: Prevention, Primary Care

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a family doctor in Kitchener Ontario who co-developed a Psychiatric Outreach Project for those at risk for homelessness and directs a Refugee Health Clinic as well as being Director of the Global Health Office of the University of Western Ontario
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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