87th Annual Georgia Public Health Association Meeting & Conference Report

The 87th Annual Meeting of the Georgia Public Health Association (GPHA) was held in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 22-23, 2016, with pre-conference (March 21st) and post-conference (March 23rd) Executive Board meetings. As Georgia’s leading forum for public health researchers, practitioners, and students, the annual meeting of the GPHA brings together participants from across the state to explore recent developments in the field and to exchange techniques, tools, and experiences. In recent years the venue for the GPHA annual conference has been Atlanta, with the 2017 GPHA Annual Meeting and Conference also scheduled to be held in Atlanta. Several new initiatives were highlighted as part of this year’s conference. These included three pre-conference workshops, expansion of academic sponsorships, an enhanced exhibit hall integrated with the poster sessions, silent auction, breaks and President’s Reception, an information booth, and an inaugural administration section track. The 2016 Annual Meeting & Conference added the Certified in Public Health (CPH) Continuing Education (CE) designation. The theme for the conference was Understanding Public Health: Research, Evidence and Practice, which reflects the science of public health. Specifically, the program addressed strengthening health systems in the United States and other countries through public health informatics; national accreditation of local health departments; applying an epidemiological approach to promoting reading proficiency for young children; an examination of factors related to health and educational disparities; continuing efforts to eliminate health disparities; and addressing key public health issues important to the state of Georgia. One hundred and nine (109) abstracts were submitted for peer review; 45 were accepted for poster and 40 for workshop presentations. Four plenary sessions with keynote speakers covered the development of collaborative methods to strengthen information capacity of public health systems, including accreditation and the linkage between early brain development and reading success. Concurrent workshops focused on board of health training, public health accreditation, capacity building, collaboration, health disparities, impacts of climatic variability on public health, monitoring systems for travelers from Ebola-affected countries, policy, and regulation. Twelve (12) awards were presented, including Legislator of the Year Award to Senator Dean Burke for his legislative e