Keynote speakers
Professor Vikram Patel
The Pershing Square Professor of Global Health, Harvard Medical School, USA
The keynote "Addressing the mental health crisis: lessons from the Global South" will describe the innovations to rapidly enhance access to psychosocial interventions for mental health problems in the global context.
You will will learn about the gap between the known effectiveness of psychosocial interventions and access to these interventions globally (including in high income countries), the barriers to access to psychosocial interventions and how global mental health scientists have sought to address these barriers. In addition, you will learn about EMPOWER, a new program being implemented simultaneously in India and the US, to use digital technologies to build the frontline workforce capacity to deliver these interventions at scale.
The work described in the presentation is aligned with some of the core guiding principles of global health, i.e.. reducing health disparities, deploying community resources in health care, improving access to evidence-based interventions and the ‘reverse engineering’ of innovations emerging from low resourced contexts to wealthy contexts.
Read more about Vikram Patel here
Dr. Renzo Guinto
Director, Planetary and Global Planetary Health Program, St. Luke’s Medical Center College of Medicine, Philippines
A new approach is needed for improving health worldwide, especially in this evolving era of “polycrisis” – the confluence of COVID-19, climate change, conflict, widening inequalities, structural racism, and many others.
Over the years, terms such as “global health”, “One Health”, and “planetary health” have emerged, in search of a new approach for solving current and emerging health, societal, and ecological challenges. Moreover, calls for “decolonizing global health” have been raised, especially by the next generation that is becoming increasingly dissatisfied with “business as usual.”
This keynote presentation – to be delivered by one of the emerging and leading next-generation health voices from the Global South – will summarize today’s pressing and deeply interconnected health challenges at the nexus of people and the planet, discuss these intersecting emerging discourses on how best to tackle these problems, and offer initial recommendations for a reimagined health approach that is more inclusive, humble, and just.
Read more about Renzo Guinto here
Professor Flemming Konradsen
Professor of International Environmental Health, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
WHO estimates a projected shortfall of 10 million health workers by 2030, mostly in low- and lower-middle income countries. The keynote "Addressing the future needs for health professionals in a globalized world with changing demands" will focus on what will be the best and most just way to address the rapidly growing demand for health professionals.
Will it be new educational technologies and international collaborative investments to increase the capacity of educational institutions in low- and middle income countries? Improve educational capacity and job retention of health professionals in high-income countries to reduce the need for foreign-trained professionals? Provide financial incentives and improved working conditions to attract and retain health professionals in remote and underserved areas of the world? Introduce policies and investments to reduce demand for health professionals? Or maybe let global health institutions play a more active and decisive role in balancing the needs of health professionals?
Clearly, without address in the global future demand for health professionals the health specific SDG targets will be impossible to achieve!
MD, PhD, MPA Søren Brostrøm
Member of the Executive Board, WHO and Director General, Danish Health Authority
According to a study from Megafon, Søren Brostrøm was the most popular public figure in Denmark's handling of the covid-19 pandemic. Being Director General for the Danish Health Authorities, every Dane got to know him during the pandemic. Since then, he has also been appointed to the Executive Board of World Health Organization.
As Søren Brostrøm has stepped up as a keynote speaker with short notice, we do not have additional information on his keynote. But the talk will evolve around Global Health - a Danish priority.