The seventh EMPHNET Regional Conference was held in Jordan under the patronage of Princess Muna Al Hussein.
According to a press release, the Seventh Regional Conference of the Eastern Mediterranean Public Health Network (EMPHNET) began on Sunday, 14th November 2021. The event was sponsored by Her Royal Highness Princess Muna Al Hussein. The five-day event gave the opportunity to public health professionals from the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMR) and beyond to gather at one platform. Field epidemiologists, key decision-makers, public health professionals, and speakers from the following organizations took part in the event.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
- World Health Organization (WHO)
- Eastern Mediterranean Region’s (EMR) ministries of health
- Training Programs in Epidemiology and Public Health Interventions Network (TEPHINET)
Along with the above-mentioned entities, people from various other organizations also participated in the event.
Five-day sessions of the conference were conducted in Amman. The hybrid model was adopted by the organizers to accommodate a maximum number of people who were interested in attending and taking part in the conference, yet they were also accessible for interested participants wishing to attend the conference online. This program of EMPHNET’s bi-annual conferences was the first interactive session after long-span restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The conference based on the theme of “Towards Public Health Resilience in the Eastern Mediterranean Region: Breaking Barriers” offered a platform for public health professionals to exchange experiences, ideas, achievements, and lessons learned from COVID-19 and other public health threats intimidating the region. Moreover, it also provided an ideal platform to the participants to discuss different methods to attain public health resilience for the EMR and to break existing barriers obstructing public health practice. Providing such an opportunity to exchange knowledge, experience, and outlooks proved to be important for the EMR especially being a region already affected by ongoing socio-political, and economical unrest.
The agenda of the conference comprised over 113 verbal and poster presentations from the region’s ten Field Epidemiology Training Program’ (FETP) residents and graduates, together with other public health professionals. Furthermore, it involved ten roundtable discussions, sessions by keynote speakers, six pre-conference workshops, amongst other opportunities for discussion and networking.
This edition of EMPHNET’s bi-annual conferences also happened to coincide with the completion of one decade since EMPHNET’s establishment which seems to be a milestone in making great achievements in the region’s public health network, the growth in areas of work, the significant growth in the number of FETPs established in the region, the growth in partnership, and public health capacities built.
The Seventh EMPHNET Regional Conference is one of many channels EMPHNET promotes to increase communication and knowledge exchange amongst public health professionals. This event falls in line with the organization’s ongoing commitment to enhance public health practice for the communities of this region and beyond.