20th to 23rd November 2019, Marseille, France.

Bridges are at the heart of the European idea. They have enabled people of this continent to come together, crossing historic and geographical frontiers, but they are not just physical structures and can take many less tangible forms.

Public health has always meant a mixture of activities, ranging from prevention of diseases to evaluation of health systems, from science to decision making, from practice to evaluation and communication. As a consequence, public health professionals constitute a diverse community. Building bridges among professionals is a challenge, but it is also a common practice as proven by the annual gatherings at the EPH Conferences.

In the last decades, health is regarded more and more as a wide societal concern and the public health community is building bridges with professionals from other society somains: nutrition field, transport, social services, environment and others.

European public health must also extend the bridges beyond Europe. Marseille has for centuries been one of the pillars of the cultural and economic bridge across the Mediterranean region. For millenniums, people have been crossing the Mediterranean, but in recent years this journey has been characterized by tragedies among those fleeing oppression and poverty.

The EPH Conference 2019 in Marseille offers public health communities in Europe and Africa an opportunity to build new ways of working together, seeking solutions to our shared challenges such as climate change, emerging infections, and the global epidemic of non-communicable diseases. But inevitably, the biggest part of our discussion will be dedicated to migration:

• What can we do together to reduce the need for people to move?
• How can we protect and support those who are forced to move?
• How can we work together on those issues engaging professionals from both sides of the Mediterranean?

Themes of Plenary Sessions:

• Building bridges for migration in a planetary context
• Solidarity for public health – integrating poverty, conflict, and other threats to health
• How can the Sustainable Development Goals contribute to the challenges of changing populations?
• New roles for public health practice
• Building global bridges between public health communities

Tip: More up to date educational events can be found online in the Education Database »medicine & health«.