Workshop Highlights Future of Population Health Science.
Drawing experts in public health, medicine, economics, public policy, and sociology from around the country and globe, the School of Public Health hosted the Second Annual Population Health Science Research Workshop on October 19 and 20.
The workshop was convened by Assistant Professor of Global Health Jacob Bor and Dean and Robert A. Knox Professor Sandro Galea.
“This workshop was an opportunity to see cutting-edge population health science being presented,” Galea says. “It was a heartening affirmation of the importance of this work and how intellectually exciting it is to see great science emerge.”
Bor and Galea worked with an interdisciplinary advisory committee to put out a call for papers and to review submissions so as to identify rigorous work on the cutting edge of population health science inquiry.
“Our goals with PHS2017 were to raise the profile of high-quality scholarship in population health, identify and advance the population health science research frontier, generate new research collaborations and opportunities, and strengthen the community of scholars working in this area,” Bor said in his opening remarks. He added that the committee was overwhelmed with more than 80 submissions, eventually narrowing it down to 12 papers that were presented and discussed for 40 minutes apiece to allow for in-depth feedback. The papers provided new perspectives on a range of population health topics, including the adverse impacts of public pensions on cardiovascular risk factors and mortality in Mexico; the health and economic effects of sleep deprivation in the US; and the impact of street violence on women’s schooling decisions in India.
The workshop also featured about 30 poster presentations.
One of the discussants was Atheendar Venkataramani, assistant professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
“The real benefit of this workshop—and what makes it unique—is that it that brings together researchers using the latest theoretical and statistical tools around topics of high importance,” he says. “Through this, it builds a new foundation for what population health scientists should be doing in the coming decades.”
Bor believes that bringing disciplines together is vital for population health sciences—especially because the concept is so new, and still in flux: “The notion of ‘population health science’ recognizes that a lot of important work on population health occurs outside of schools of public health and medicine,” he says. “At SPH, we can play an important convening role, breaking down disciplinary silos and engaging scientists in a conversation about how to identify the conditions that make populations healthy and how to improve them.”
During the workshop, Bor said that “the diversity of perspectives at the meeting not only improves the rigor of our research; it also help us keep our eyes on the prize: the improvement of population health.
“Our goals are not just to find the right answers to the questions posed, but also to ask the right questions. That often involves stepping outside of our own research areas to consider afresh what really matters for population health.”
In a post-workshop feedback survey, attendees expressed appreciation for the high quality of the papers presented; the extensive time for discussion of each paper; and the intimate nature of the conference, which led to in-depth discussions and new collaborations.
The workshop was co-sponsored with the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science (IAPHS).