Chapter IV - Overview of Conference Objectives

a) To facilitate interchange of conceptual and methodological knowledge on issues related to equity in health and health care services.

Participants presented 93 papers (abstracts) and facilitated 9 workshops, all dedicated and designed to accomplish this conference goal of an exchange of current knowledge;
Participants presented 11 vignettes on their current health equity research and practice;
Participants displayed 30 posters describing their health equity research, practices and issues.

b) To advance research related to equity in health:

See above (a);
The workshops and Regional Sessions were focussed on how to work together globally and locally and share 'best practices', to advance health equity research in priority equity areas and priority geographic areas of concern.

c) To build, maintain/strengthen relationships with other relevant international/regional organizations:

Participants at the Conference represented 53 countries and major international and regional organizations concerned with health equity, including PAHO and WHO.
Participants focussed on how to strengthen these relationships at the Regional Sessions.

d) To have the ISEqH General assembly and Executive Board and Committee meetings:

The General Assembly and Executive Board/Committee meetings were held during the Conference;
A new Board and a new Executive were elected.
The new president is Dr. Yves Talbot.

e) To form a Canadian Health Equity Network:

The Canadian Equity in Health Network was established and confirmed at the Regional Sessions.

f) To promote the development of tools and resources to measure equity in health and health services delivery:

The 11 workshops were designed to focus on promoting the development of tools and resources that measure health equity.

Note - All abstracts and vignettes were printed in book form so that participants had copies, with communication information about the authors, for future networking related to the Conference's health equity objectives and to their own specific health equity research/practices/advocacy efforts.

Selection of Keynote Speaker

After several consultations with informal advisors, this responsibility was offered to Dr. Lucy Gilson. She has nearly 20 years experience in health system research and policy analysis. She has worked primarily in Eastern and Southern Africa, with some experience in South-east Asia. She currently assists in managing a small research unit (15-20 people) in South Africa that conducts independent health policy and systems research nationally and regionally, and provides technical advice to the South African government and local non-governmental organisations.

She is directly involved in research development, supervision and implementation, as well as a wide range of capacity building activities. Dr. Gilson has an international reputation in health policy and financing research. Her particular areas of expertise include health care financing mechanisms, decentralization and organizational development, analysis of decision-making processes, health system equity and health systems evaluation. She is currently developing a programme of work investigating the role of trust within health systems.

She holds a PhD, Health Economics and Policy (London); MA Development Economics (East Anglia); BA (Hon) Politics, Philosophy and Economics (Oxon). She is the Deputy Director and Associate Professor, Centre for Health Policy, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa and Senior Lecturer, Health Economics/Policy, Health Economics and Financing Programme, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) UK.

Following are some of her key current research and consulting activities:

Investigation of the nature of vertical relationships within the South African health system and their influence over health system performance
Mapping public/private interfaces within the South African health system
Investigating the nature and influence of trust within health systems
Provision of advice to the Tanzanian Essential Health Interventions Project (TEHIP).

Recent Publications by Dr. Gilson:

Over 50 papers, book chapters and mimeographs

Mackintosh M and Gilson L (2002, forthcoming) Non-market relationships in health care. In: Stewart F., Heyer J and Thorp R. Group Behaviour and Development Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McIntyre D and Gilson L (2001, forthcoming) Putting equity in health back onto the social policy agenda: experiences from South Africa. Social Science and Medicine
Gilson L, Kalyalya D, Kuchler F, Lake S, Oranga H and Ouendo M (2001) Strategies for promoting equity: experience with community financing in three African countries. Health Policy 58: 37-67.
Gilson L, Kalyalya D, Kuchler F, Lake S, Oranga H and Ouendo M (2000) The equity impacts of community financing activities in three African countries. International Journal of Health Planning and Management 15: 291-317
McIntyre D and Gilson L (2000). Redressing disadvantage: Promoting vertical equity within South Africa. Health Care Analysis 8: 235-258

Organization of simultaneous sessions for scientific papers

A total of 210 scientific abstracts were received. A small scientific committee was organized under then President Dr. Starfield, with the purpose of selecting those abstracts most related to the Conference's main theme of Research in the Service of Policy and Advocacy for Health and Health Services, and the Conference's objectives.

Abstracts were classified into five categories: Policy, Pathways, Evaluation, Methods and Special Populations. The following criteria were used to rate them:

Relevance to Equity: 4 points
Quality of Method: 2 points
Clarity of Message: 2 points
Relevance to a Conference Objective: 2 points

The Scientific Committee selected a total score of eight as the cut-off for acceptability for oral presentations at the Conference.

The final selection identified a total of 93 abstracts for oral presentation and 50 for posters. The oral presentations were distributed in three sets of four concurrent sessions in the morning and afternoon of the first day of the meeting and in the morning of the second day.

Presentation of 9 vignettes presentation

The first lunch session was devoted to the reading of 'keynote vignettes'. A total of nine prestigious researchers were invited to talk for five minutes about what can be learned about equity in health by comparing areas within and across countries. They contributed with their ideas and proposals to further research on equity in health and health systems:

Cesar G. Vïctora - What can we learn about equity in health by comparing areas within and across countries, over time?
Angus Deaton - Health inequalities across space: puzzles and questions.
Ilmo Keskimäki - What can we learn from comparative international research on equity in health?
Johan P. Mackenbach - The value of international comparisons for the study of socio-economic inequalities in health.
Di McIntyre - Geographic and health system equity.
Denny Vágerö - How do health inequalities emerge? A co-evolution hypothesis.
Eddy van Doorslaer - Remaining worries about the equitable distribution of health care in rich countries.
Alistair Woodward - Are the most important comparisons unrealistic?
Abbas Bhuiya - Utility of regional database for challenging health inequity in Bangladesh.

Workshops

Logistic support was given to 11 workshops presented during the conference. These workshops were an opportunity to share with other work in progress with respect to the development of tools and resources to measure equity in health and health services delivery and also to contribute to capacity building in research and evaluation concerning equity in health within and across countries.

Organization of the Second ISEqH General Assembly

Since one of the objectives of the Conference was to organize the 2nd ISEqH General Assembly, all material for the Assembly was translated into French and Spanish.

Proposed changes to the Constitution were prepared by the Executive Board.

An executive board member slate was proposed with the following names: Barbara Krimgold, Yves Talbot (North America), Lucy Gilson, Solani Khosa, Rosemary Kumwenda-Phiri, Godfrey Woelk (Africa), Kim Chang-yup, P.K.B. Nayar, Liu Yuanli (Asia), Ian Anderson, Philippa Howden-Chapman (Oceania) , Bo Burstrom, Ilmo Keskimaki, Itziar Larizgoitia, Johan Mackenbach (Europe), Luis Zamora (Latin-America). For the Nomination Committee: Norberto Dachs (Brazil), Elsa Gomez (Colombia), Vivian Lin (Australia), Diane McIntyre (South Africa), Gavin Mooney (Australia),TJ Ngulube (Zambia).

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Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter V
Chapter VI