AUA at the European Public Health Conference in Marseille
2 min readMARSEILLE, France – Researchers from the Avedisian Onanian Center for Health Services Research and Development (CHSR) of the Turpanjian School of Public Health (SPH) Serine Sahakyan (MPH’ 15), Zaruhi Grigoryan (MPH’ 15), and Lusine Aslanyan (MPH’ 18) represented the American University of Armenia (AUA) at the 12th European Public Health (EPH) Conference held on November 20-23, 2019.
This was the largest EPH conference ever held in Europe that hosted around 2,400 public health professionals, scientists and policy makers from 75 countries around the world. All the delegates gathered around the topic “Building Bridges for Solidarity and Public Health” to learn how to overcome real economic and political walls by building bridges to connect disciplines, countries and continents. The selection of the venue of the conference was symbolic, as for centuries Marseille has been an economic and cultural bridge across the Mediterranean.
“We appreciate that AUA’s transformative priorities include transdisciplinary collaborations to produce translational innovations, as it urges us to step out and connect with outer-disciplinary entities, and this is very much in line with the call of one of the most prominent public health communities – the European Public Health Association,” noted Sahakyan on behalf of CHSR researchers. “We, as public health professionals, were inspired by the conference, which conveyed the message of transformational leadership for making sure that no one stays behind.”
The following studies were presented: “Evaluation of Midwifery Education in Armenia” by Sahakyan; “Compliance with Smoke-Free Policy at Tuberculosis Facilities in Armenia: Mixed-Method Study” by Grigoryan; and “Attitudes, Norms and Behaviors Enhancing Unhealthy Food Choices of High-School Students in Armenia” by Aslanyan. The latter is her MPH thesis project that she has co-authored with Dr. Anahit Demirchyan (MPH’ 99). Aside from the presentation, Aslanyan was competitively selected to chair a poster walk session on child health.
Sahakyan and Grigoryan were awarded AUA Professional Development Grants and Aslanyan had received a travel grant from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to attend the conference.
The abstracts were published in the European Journal of Public Health.
The AUA Turpanjian School of Public Health works actively to improve population health and health services in Armenia and beyond through interdisciplinary education and development of public health professionals to be leaders in public health, health services research and evaluation, and health care delivery and management.
