The 8th Annual CUGH Conference, one of the world's leading academic global health conferences, will be held in Washington, DC from April 6 to April 9, 2017.

The meeting brings together committed leaders, professionals, educators, students from diverse fields of study including engineering, business, law, policy, natural sciences, nursing, public health, medicine, and environmental studies to explore, discuss and critically assess the global health landscape. 

This year’s theme, Healthy People, Healthy Ecosystems: Implementation, Leadership and Sustainability in Global Health, reflects the growing realization that our physical and planetary health are inextricably linked. World-class speakers will address topics that include planetary health; governance and political decision-making; health systems and human resources; women’s health; non-communicable diseases and social determinants of health; and infectious diseases.

The UW Department of Global Health will host and speak on multiple satellite and regular sessions at this year's conference, including the following:

• Reimagining Population Health Through Global Partnership
  Thursday April 6, 2017, 1 - 5 p.m. (Pre-registration required)
  This session will be a facilitated and highly interactive discussion led by leaders of the University of Washington's Population Health Initiative. The session is intended to identify opportunities for universities, faculty, and students to work together to generate solutions to some of the population health challenges we face in the areas of human health, environmental resiliency, and social and economic equity.

• Measuring the World’s Health: Findings and Lessons from the Global Burden of Disease Collaboration
  Friday April 7, 2017, 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
  The annual Global Burden of Disease study quantifies health loss from all major diseases, injuries, and risk factors by age, sex, and population. With more than 2,000 collaborators in nearly 130 nations, the GBD examines 300-plus diseases and injuries and about 80 risk factors in every country studied, as well as subnational assessments in several countries. Richard Horton has called the GBD “a very powerful instrument…for transformation socially, economically, and indeed politically.” Join us for an interactive discussion on the GBD, including key results from the latest cycle, policy applications of the study, and the success and reach of the collaborative network.

• Implementation Science: The Signature Science of Global Health
  Friday April 7, 2017, 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
  Implementation science is of critical importance to global health. It allows us to address hard questions such as how best to translate new findings into practice in different settings and how and why health interventions lose efficacy over time or sometimes display unintended effects. Extending the reach of implementation science and ensuring its success relies on finding innovative ways to build research capacity enhanced communication between implementation scientists, decision makers and program implementers. These collaborations will be critical to speed the translation of effective interventions into programs and policies and to understanding important questions for implementation science.

• Reflections in Global Health: 2017 Essay Contest Reading and Discussion
  Friday April 7, 2017, 4:30 - 6 p.m. 
  The essay reading session features the top 8 entries in the fourth annual CUGH Global Health Essay Contest. The essays, while reflecting a wide range of personal and professional impacts, document health inequities and social justice issues from all countries rich and poor. Together, their messages of resilience, courage and fraternity bring hope in the power of all of us to make a difference."

• Understanding and Managing Health Risks in the Anthropocene
  Saturday April 8, 2017, 4:30 - 6 p.m. 
  Changing weather and climate patterns, biodiversity loss, land use change, and other global ecosystem changes will characterize the Anthropocene. These changes are exacerbating existing and creating new risks to human and animal health, and to sustainability, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Policy- and decision-makers need evidence of current impacts and projections of future risks and on options for preparing for and managing risks.  Panelists will illustrate not just the challenges, but also the opportunities to improve evidence-based risk management and policy development to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by collaborating across sectors; increasing the use of environmental information; identifying thresholds for action; and explicitly considering the social, cultural, and political contexts within which responses will be implemented.

• Oral Abstract Presentations | Health Systems and Human Resources
  Saturday April 8, 2017, 4:30 - 6 p.m. 

Registration for the 8th Annual CUGH Conference: Healthy People, Healthy Ecosystems is currently open.