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Chapter V: Conclusions
The 2nd International Conference of ISEqH successfully met all
its objectives of becoming a vehicle for scientific interchange of
conceptual and methodological knowledge, on issues related to equity in
health and health care services.
Some of the concrete outcomes of the conference were:
- Toronto Declaration. An International Declaration Drafting
Committee
was appointed during the General Assembly to draft this declaration.
The Draft will be ready soon.
- The 3rd International Conference will take place in June
2002. Four
countries have expressed interest in hosting the meeting; France, South
Africa, Brazil and Sri Lanka.
- The Society has been working with BiomedCentral. (BMC) to
publish a
Journal in Equity in Health. The journal's editor will be John Di
Libertiand Barbara will be co-editor. This journal will be one of the
vehicles to publish some of the outstanding papers presented at the
conference.
- The ISEqH WEBsite will be updated before the end of the
year 2002 to
include the book of abstract, the proceeding of the conference, changes
in the Constitution and new executive board members.
- The Society will link with the Documentation Centre run by
Dr. Johan
Mackenbach at Emaritus University in Rotterdam. This will allow the
sharing of resources and information among fellow researchers in equity
in health.
- The Executive Board will develop before the end of November
2002 a
link-list for their region and send them to the Secretariat.
- A meeting with the Pan American Health organization will be
set up
by early October 2002 to develop a two-year working plan with countries
in The Americas. This plan will include linking with PAHO virtual
library and supporting the developing of resources in equity in health
in Spanish.
- The Society increased its membership in 10% during the
International
Conference.
Lessons learned and recommendations for future conferences
- ISEqH has developed a process of selection of abstracts
initiated in
Havana that has worked well and it should continue to be used.
- To try to work in three languages is a very expensive and
makes
fundraising extremely difficult. ISEqH has the privilege of having an
excellent relationship with the Pan American Health Organization to
facilitate funds for Spanish translation. Canadian Heritage covered
only 50% of all translation in French, leaving the other 50% in the
hands of the conference organizers. There are very few sources of
translation funds in Canada. However, this is a pre-requisite for CIDA.
ISEqH will continue to strive to make the international conference
fully accessible in these three languages.
- The uncertainty of fundraising made it difficult to
negotiate with
hotel, travel agencies and special events companies that wanted large
sums of cash in advance, to secure services. It is better not to get
involve at all with hotel and travel services and provide a per-diem to
participants on arrival.
- To ask participants to evaluate a conference as it is
happening does
not provide accurate results. Participants are too busy absorbing new
knowledge, networking and site-seeing. It is suggested that three to
six months after the conference, a brief questionnaire be sent to a
randomly selected group of participants to evaluate the impact of the
conference in their work.
- Even though the Medical Sciences Building at the University
of
Toronto holds conference almost every week, there is no central
coordination for the site and facilities and this means the organizers
of an event have to work with over 10 different staff, all of them with
different responsibilities and demands.
- Three days of intense conference work gives very little
time for
delegates to rest. It is preferable to organize only one special event
at a low cost and to try to make two or more within the conference.
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Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter VI
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