Wondering How to Navigate the Current Prevention Landscape? These four topics offer a roadmap

The October 22, 2013 Ounce of Prevention Conference will focus on four distinct but complementary themes, which will be explored in plenaries and workshops throughout the day. The planning committee has been working diligently to craft conference content that will help participants better understand and navigate the ever-changing prevention landscape. Here is a sneak preview of our plenary topics and descriptions. Stay tuned for details about presenters, workshops and more.

Plenary Titles: 

● Steering the Health System Upstream: Health Care Reform and Primary Prevention

● New Partnerships for Systems Change: Integrating Behavioral Health and Primary Care

● Community Organizing for Health Equity: Building & Sustaining Leadership in Communities of Color

● Climate Change and Public Health: Cross-sector Collaboration and Community Resilience


Plenary Descriptions:

Steering the Health System Upstream: Health Care Reform and Primary Prevention

Full implementation of state and federal health care reform provides new opportunities for promoting wellness and preventing injury and disease. However, health providers, public health practitioners, and advocates, are challenged by complexities and uncertainties of emerging new payment and care models.  What impact will current policy discussions about integration of primary care, mental and behavioral health, and community prevention have on prevention investments and services?  This plenary will provide an overview of major public health provisions of the 2010 federal Affordable Care Act and the 2012 Massachusetts cost containment law (Chapter 224), with an emphasis on identifying practical opportunities for promoting prevention and community health.


New Partnerships for Systems Change:
Integrating Behavioral Health and Primary Care

We all need to take care of our physical health and behavioral health needs. We cannot separate the mind and body since symptoms and illness in one impacts the health of the other. This plenary will explore how we can best integrate behavioral and mental health with primary care, while simultaneously addressing health disparities in vulnerable populations. We will discuss the unique and important role Community Health Workers play in clinical and community prevention efforts, prevention opportunities and challenges for our aging and special populations, and ideas to break down silos by collaborating with diverse organizations.


Community Organizing for Health Equity: Building & Sustaining Leadership in Communities of Color

Historically, social determinants (SD) such as healthy housing, transportation, employment, safe neighborhoods, and equitable educational opportunities, have been outside the traditional public health domain. Compelling evidence consistently demonstrates that racial and social factors significantly influence the health of communities and lead to health disparities. This plenary will explore how a racial and social justice framework is vital to achieving optimum behavioral and physical health outcomes and over time, systemic change. Topics will include cross-sector collaboration and the engagement of youth and other vulnerable and socially isolated populations, the prevention of violence, and assurance that health inequities are not perpetuated through existing practices.


Climate Change and Public Health: Cross-sector Collaboration and Community Resilience

In recent years, climate change has affected severe weather, the spread of vector borne illness, local economies, mental health, housing, and food and fuel supply chains. Healthy, collaborative, and resilient communities fare better in the face of these increasingly dramatic challenges. This plenary will focus on building community-level capacity to anticipate, act, and bounce back from these impacts. Presenters will emphasize cross-sector collaboration and serving community members in need of additional assistance, as well serving our communities’ most vulnerable populations.