16th December 2009 : Under the Patronage of His Highness Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research and Chancellor of the United Arab Emirates University Global Health and the UAE Asia-Middle East Connections United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) is convening the world’s leading Health Scientists, Researchers and Clinicians in Al Ain, UAE in January to discuss Critical g
Global Health Threats and to set the Research Agenda for 2010 onwards.
The conference, which is the first of its kind on this scale, is being held in collaboration with Yale University, the University of California, the American University of Beirut, the Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong, and Unifob Global at the University of Bergen, Norway.
Speakers at the conference, who will come from all over the world, will include Professor Sir Richard Feachem, Professor of Global Health at the University of California, San Francisco and former Under Secretary of the United Nations; Dr Vittoria Colizza whose pioneering research has led to the tracking of the evolution of pandemics in real time; Professor Tai-Hing Lam, one of the world’s leading experts on chronic and urban diseases including the long-term and far-reaching consequences of alcohol abuse; and Harvard Professor Richard Mollica, the leading expert on the global health implications of refugee trauma. Dr. Oliver Harrison, Director of the Health Authority Abu Dhabi, will reveal the rapid progress being made in Abu Dhabi in public health and Professor Lihadh Al-Gazali of UAEU will discuss her pioneering work on the importance of genetic factors in the health of the Emirati population.
Throughout five days of presentations, 60 speakers will present new research and insight from a dozen countries in the Middle East and Asia in eight major areas of global health concern. Following the conference, UAEU will make the scientific results available to the world community in published proceedings and on the web—stimulating debate and discussion on the most important health questions mankind will face in this century.
The conference, Global Health and the UAE: Asia-Middle East Connections, will run from 4th to 8th January 2010 at UAEU in Al Ain in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, UAE.
Dr Abdullah Al-Khanbashi, Vice-Chancellor, said: “We are delighted to be holding this ground-breaking and important conference at United Arab Emirates University. The primary mission of UAEU is to advance knowledge and promote cutting-edge research for the furtherance of the people of the UAE and to meet the future needs of the nation and region. The unprecedented discussion we are convening will report on the latest research on the rapid changes in global health and its central role in 21st century national security. To implement the agenda we develop at this conference we will build on the progress the UAE is already making in healthcare research and the collaboration already underway with global scholars.”
Professor Wyatt R. Hume, Provost, UAEU, said: “Worldwide social currents are gaining power. As populations move across continents in greater numbers they are taking with them a complex mixture of people, customs, and commerce. With these global flows, diseases are spreading too. Public health is global health now. Health authorities in individual countries must contend today with worldwide forces. They must learn to create and deploy flexible solutions that can adapt to global as well as local reality. We alone cannot solve the world’s health problems. Yet UAEU is working to address the problems of the nation and region and then to share solutions globally−as a key hub in the international scientific network of the 21st century.”