Introduction
The Annual Workshop on Dynamic Modelling for Health Policy seeks to bring together health policy modellers and public policy decision makers to substantively advance the art and science of application of mathematical and computational modelling to health policy. Each year of the workshop will be organized around a particular health focus, such as obesity-related disorders, the health system structure and delivery of health services, dynamics of health disparities, zoonotic diseases and chronic-infectious disease interactions. Particular attention will be paid to topics in which the needs and opportunities for effective modelling are particularly acute in the North American context.
The workshops will feature keynote by prominent researchers in dynamic modeling for policy, panel sessions, poster sessions for students, highlights of relevant funding agencies, and cross-disciplinary discussions. Additional anticipated areas of presentation or discussion include but are not limited to: Policy-relevant research gaps, priorities for cross-methodology synergy and methodological improvement, infrastructural support for modelling, novel leveraging data sources, and knowledge translation. Solicitation and reporting of tangible outcome measures and feedback for continuous improvement will form an important priority of the workshop.
The First Annual Workshop on Dynamic Modelling for Health Policy (in 2009) will focus on Obesity and Obesity-Related Disease, and will span two days and an evening session in 2009, on July 22-24, 2009. The workshop will feature a keynote address by Dr. Diane Finegood, former Scientific Director of CIHR Institute for Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes and currently the director of the CAPTURE Project of the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer.
Participants can now download the workshop orientation information and all workshop materials currently received.
Speakers
Confirmed speakers include the following:
* Diane Finegood (Simon Fraser University & Canadian Partnership Against Cancer)
* Y. Claire Wang (Columbia University)
* Ross Hammond (Brookings Institution)
* Laura Rosella (ICES/U Toronto)
* Gary Sacks (Deakin University, Australia)
* Tarek Abdel-Hamid (Naval Postgraduate School)
* Patty Mabry (US NIH OBSSR)
* Lisa Lix (U Saskatchewan)
* Meenakshi Fernandes (Pardee RAND Graduate School)
* Kristen Hassmiller Lich (U North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
* Roland Dyck/Nathaniel Osgood (U Saskatchewan)
* Terry Huang (United States National Institute of Child Health and Human Development)
* Azadeh Alimadad (Simon Fraser University)
* Mona Vajihollahi (Simon Fraser University)
* Ozge Karanfil (Simon Fraser University)
Topics for presentation include obesity & chronic disease trends, Agent-Based, System Dynamics and Microsimulation models of obesity & obesity-related chronic disease, the interaction between obesity-related chronic disease & infectious disease, intergenerational effects on obesity and implications for intervention, novel sources of data, and the framing of obesity as a complex-systems problem.
Please see the "Speakers" page and page of Abstracts for further information.
Schedule
The workshop will begin at 4:00 pm on July 22 and conclude at 3:30 pm on July 24. The sessions on July 22 & 24th are being scheduled so as to allow attendees to arrive & depart on those days, respectively.
Venue
The workshop will be held on the University of Saskatchewan campus in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Saskatoon is served by an international airport featuring direct flights to many Canadian, and three US, destinations.
Attendees
Attendees include an international audience of health policy-makers, medical health officers, mathematical and computational modellers, experts in interfacing fields (e.g. biostatisticians, epidemiologists, and those with formal training in public health), selected clinicians and health professionals, and students.
Financial
No registration fees will be charged for the workshop attendees. By the generosity of our sponsors, we will be able to provide bursaries to cover much or all of travel costs for speakers, in addition to hotel costs and a per diem. A limited number of bursaries are available for students; interested students should write to the organizers for details.
Sponsorship
The Lupina Foundation has generously pledged seed funding for workshops in each of the next 5 years, and the United States National Institutes of Health has made a major investment in the 2009 workshop. We are grateful to a number of additional sponsors for their financial and in-kind support.
