Alison, I'd be very interested in your view of the IUHPE event. 

On receiving the umpteenth invitation from event organizers to register and,
most particularly, purchase a booth (for $800+) on behalf of my community
group, I finally sent a short and sardonic response. In addition to
requesting removal from their email distribution list, to which I'd never
subscribed, I used the opportunity to point out some of the problems that
community groups like WISE might find in participating in, or perceive in
the promotion of, this event.

Among them:
* the very high fees
* the language and content on the website and in the promo materials 
* the self-promotion of certain conference organizers
* the top-down organization. The organizing team included certain of the
usual suspects (among whom are persons who don't recognize or value
community groups' contributions to knowledge), and excluded key community
groups that have been working for years to advance health promotion in BC.

From the website and flyer, one learned there would be a "Scientific
Program" and a "Social and Cultural Program". The flyer included no
information about the latter, which puzzled this reader, so I checked the
website. I assumed the division in programs meant that presentations would
be organized into those two streams, with topics on the SDOH in the
social/cultural stream and those on obesity, diabetes, nutrition, etc. in
the science stream.

Turned out that my surmise was incorrect. According to the website, the
Social and Cultural Program wasn't a program at all, but the collection of
entertainment events organized for conference: the opening/closing
ceremonies, a museum tour, the reception and dance. In other words, all
presentations were collected under the Scientific Program. This gave me the
immediate impression that the SDOH, which are fundamental to the health
promotion field, were excluded for this conference. That there was nothing
about making it possible for community groups, which work largely in SDOH
fields, to AFFORD participation in the event was just icing on the cake.

As it happened, there were presentations on the SDOH, although you'd never
have known it from the website or promo materials. 

Now, had there been full subsidies available and it been made clear that
presentations on the SDOH were welcome, then WISE would have submitted a
proposal. Instead, the message was that the IUHPE wanted to hear only from
science, indeed that it considered scientists as the only valid contributors
to Health Promotion Education. Scanning the list of exhibitors only enhanced
this perception. Now if the organizing committee had included, or even
meaningfully consulted with, key community groups working on health
promotion in BC, then such problems would have been avoided. (I'm not
inferring that WISE should have been consulted, but other groups should have
been obvious.)


Ocean

Chrystal Ocean, Coordinator
Wellbeing through Inclusion Socially & Economically
http://www.wise-bc.org/

Policies of Exclusion, Poverty & Health: Stories from the front
http://www.wise-bc.org/CVProject/book.html

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