PHASA Conference: Workshop on whether African governments invest sufficiently in Public Health Capacity

African countries face formidable public health challenges, including declining or stagnating life expectancy at birth, a high burden of communicable diseases such as HIV&AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis; an increasing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and injuries; resource constraints; sub-optimal health system performance and low investment in public health research. Public health functions are the silent yet critical element of a comprehensive approach to disease prevention, health promotion and protection, and include mechanisms that support intersectoral action to address the social determinants of health. Public health professionals also have planning, management, monitoring, evaluation and research competencies that can meaningfully contribute to the agenda of health system strengthening. The active participation of these professionals in the public health sector is critical to optimise the functioning of the health system and to ensure that health inequities are addressed and that global health targets are met.

At the coming PHASA conference in Cape Town a workshop will debate and discuss how to increase the investment by African governments in public health and capacity building.

The main aims of the workshop are to:

1. Provide a forum to engage with and debate the role of public health professionals in supporting public health policy, planning and implementation
2. Present the results of research that examines the current career pathing of public health professionals and current public health posts in the public sector
3. Identify factors facilitating and constraining the ability of governments to absorb and adequately utilise public health professionals in the health sector
4. Develop strategies for influencing African governments to increase resource, public health training capacity and professionals’ roles in the health system.

The target audience of the workshop are policymakers, Public Health Professionals, Public Health Training Institutions. Please join us at the discussion by attending the workshop at the conference.