Underserved Populations calls for papers / meetings & conferences

Call for Presenters: International Street Medicine Symposium IX

October 24-26, 2013 Boston, Massachusetts

The International Street Medicine Symposium Committee is pleased to extend an open invitation for presentation proposal submissions. While we are particularly interested in exploring themes related to continuity and coordination of care across the spectrum of homelessness, streets-to-housing interventions, and integration of Street Medicine programming into local hospitals and academic institutions, submissions in any topic area related to the health care of unsheltered homeless populations are welcome. Street Medicine providers and related organizations are encouraged to submit proposals for one of the following three presentation format categories:

A. Lecture (35 min. large-group presentation + 10 min. discussion)

This format is well-suited for the dissemination of new/updated information relating to the field of Street Medicine, review of clinically-pertinent innovations and best practices, and reporting of outcomes data from field research or interventions. Research-oriented submissions may be work-in-progress. Encouraged topic areas include, but are not limited to:

Socio-environmental determinants of health (environmental threats, health care access, housing access, community building, advocacy)

Morbidity, mortality, and vulnerability assessment

Acute disease diagnosis and management

Chronic disease management and quality of care measures

Integrated management of common complicating co-morbidities (mental illness, substance abuse/addiction, and traumatic brain injury)

Comprehensive primary care and outreach models that foster continuity and coordination of care across the spectrum of homelessness (streets, shelter, hospital, respite, housing)

B. Workshop (60 min. interactive, small-group presentation)

This format is well-suited for the sharing of practical knowledge, skills, and personal/professional/organizational enrichment strategies by presenters with particular expertise in any of these or other relevant topic areas:

Creative patient engagement and motivational strategies designed to reduce barriers and enhance care access for the most marginalized individuals, especially those suffering from severe mental illness, personality disorders, addiction, or deep-seeded distrust

Medical education and training approaches related to homelessness, including curriculum development and implementation, educational resource networking, and faculty mentoring of student-led organizations

Initiating and nurturing relationships between service organizations and local hospitals, academic medical centers, and educational institutions

Creating effective inter-agency and inter-disciplinary collaboration with respect to service, advocacy, and consumer involvement

Fundraising approaches, skills, and resources relevant to Street Medicine practices

Maintaining care access and quality during times of financial and/or political constraint

Ethical challenges commonly encountered in providing care to unsheltered homeless populations

Prevention of burn-out among clinicians and service agency staff

C. Poster (scientific poster format with dedicated viewing time)

This format is well-suited for clinical vignettes, highlighting program development/updates, description of service models, or exhibition of medical education approaches to service learning and outreach. Students and student organizations are particularly encouraged to submit in this format category, though non-students are also welcome to submit poster presentation proposals. (Students are not limited to this format category and may submit in a different category if more appropriate). Depending upon scheduling constraints, there may be an opportunity for selected posters to be presented orally as well.

All proposals submitted will be reviewed and judged by a panel that includes members of the Symposium Committee and other invited experts. Reviewers will evaluate proposals for presentation based upon the following three criteria:

1. Specific written learning objectives (active voice preferred)

2. A maximum 500-word abstract describing the presentation content, approach, and intended format (lecture, workshop, or poster). Abstracts will be judged relative to achievement of the following goals:

a) Target Audience – How appropriate is the topic for an audience of clinicians, outreach workers, service agency representatives, and community stakeholders dedicated to improving the health and well-being of unsheltered homeless populations?

b) Innovation – How novel is the information or approach in addressing a problem related to the health care of unsheltered homeless populations?

c) Impact – How potentially beneficial are the findings, interventions, or programs to the care of patients/clients, development of services, training of providers, or sustainability of programs?

d) Applicability – How accessible and generalizable are the findings, interventions, or programs to other practice sites around the world?

e) Knowledge Advancement – How valuable is the information or approach to the growing body of Street Medicine knowledge and clinical expertise? Have data/findings been collected, analyzed, and presented in a rigorous and scholarly way?

f)  Mission Advancement – How substantially does the information or approach promote/advance the values and vision of the Street Medicine Institute and International Street Medicine Symposium?

3. Adherence to submission guidelines:

a) Submissions must include current title, degree(s), and institutional/organizational affiliation and role for all presenters. A brief bio-sketch of presenters is welcome if available. The primary presenter should be listed first, followed by any co-presenters if applicable.

b) Submissions must include contact information for the primary presenter including e-mail, phone, and mailing address.

c) Submissions must be in Word document or PDF format.

d) Submissions must be e-mailed to pperri21@gmail.com.

e) Submissions must be received by 12:00 am EST on May 31, 2013.

For lecture or workshop proposals selected for presentation, the primary presenter will receive a stipend of up to $750.00 (US) to help defray (documented) travel and lodging expenses incurred by that presenter only. For student poster proposals selected for presentation, the primary student presenter will be eligible for a limited number of travel/lodging stipends of up to $600.00 (US). In addition, for each proposal accepted for presentation regardless of format category, the primary presenter and one co-presenter (if applicable) will be exempted from any relevant registration fees. Submitters will be notified of the review committee’s decision on or before June 7, 2013. Questions about the Symposium or proposal submission process can be addressed to the committee chair at pperri21@gmail.com.

Call for Abstracts: 2nd International Conference on Nutrition and Growth (N&G 2014)

The 2nd International Conference on Nutrition and Growth (N&G 2014) will take place on January 30 – February 1, 2014 in Barcelona, Spain.

The 2nd International Conference on Nutrition and Growth (N&G 2014) follows the success of the 1st International Conference held in Paris, France in March 2012.  The purpose of the conference is to bring together pediatricians, nutritionists, neonatologists, experts in child development and other specialists to discuss the challenges of the interplay between Nutrition and Growth in the pediatric age group. The meeting will enable the exchange of ideas and knowledge between the different disciplines for facilitating research and clinical interdisciplinary collaborations focusing on nutrition and growth.

The  2nd International Conference on Nutrition and Growth (N&G 2014) will provide a unique platform for discussing the interplay between nutrition and growth in children and focus on cutting edge research, the latest developments and groundbreaking results.

Deadline for Abstract Submission: September 30, 2013

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION TOPICS

Neonatal & Prematurity

Infancy

Childhood & Adolescence

Obesity

Other

CONFERENCE TOPICS

Optimal growth of premature infants

The right diet for infants born SGA

Nutrition and the hormonal system

Macro and micronutrients

Nutrition and growth in children suffering from chronic disease

Nutrition supplements

Vitamins and hormonal system

Nutrition and diabetes

Nutrition in underprivileged countries

Bone assessment, bone health and bone status in health and disease

SYMPOSIA TOPICS

Outcome measures of nutrition and growth

Nutrition and growth in under privileged communities

Early nutrition and later growth

Nutrition and growth in childhood and adolescence

Catch up growth

Obesity and growth during childhood and adolescence

A new approach to address the stunting and adiposity challenge

Nutrition in the premature infant

Bone acquisition in health and disease

Nutrition and growth during growth hormone therapy

Deadline for Abstract Submission: September 30, 2013

Please follow the instructions listed below:

Abstracts may be submitted for oral or poster presentations.

Abstracts must be submitted via the conference website only. Abstracts submitted by fax will not be accepted.

Presenting authors must be registered participants. Only abstracts of authors who have paid their registration fees by the Early Registration Deadline will be scheduled for presentation and included for publication.

Submission of an abstract acknowledges your acceptance for the abstract to be published in all printed material of the Meeting.

Abstracts must be submitted in English.

Conflicts of Interest / Disclosure: Work submitted for presentation must include an acknowledgement of funding sources of commercial nature and/or consulting or holding of significant equity in a company that could be affected by the results of the study.

The presenting author is expected to attend the pediatric conference and present the poster or oral presentation. The presenting author is required to ensure that all co-authors are aware of the content of the abstract before submission.

Abstracts must be allocated to a specific category and topic area for the Scientific Program. You will need to select the category and topic most suited to your abstract.

The conference organizers may be contacted for further information:

c/o Kenes International
1-3 Rue de Chantepoulet
P.O. Box 1726
CH-1211 Geneva 1, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 908 04 88, Fax: + 41 22 906 9140
E-mail: ngc@kenes.com

Call for Papers: Bias in Health Data

Autumn Conference of the Section
Sociology of Medicine and Health of the
German Sociological Association
03/04 October 2013
European University Institute, Florence, Italy

Public health research is based mainly on two different types of data: register data and survey data. Cases recorded in register data (such as hospital or insurance data) are the result of a selection process with several biases. For example, hospital data undergo several selection stages beginning with the definition of a mental or physical state such as being ill or dysfunctional, the decision to use medical care, the subsequent diagnosis by a physician and the decision for or against a particular treatment and finally the choice for stationary versus ambulant treatment. Independently of medical or health issues, social mechanisms also bias the filtering process at each stage. This fact is of minor concern when using hospital data to describe the population of a hospital, however, the problems begin when data are used to estimate the prevalence of diseases depending, for instance, on gender, social class, or age:

Gender is correlated with sensitivity to symptoms and the means of accessing medical care, while social class influences the conditions of health insurance and therefore also the cost of a particular treatment; older people are more likely to choose inpatient treatment since they may not be able to cope with the situation at home, which is also relevant for hospital data.

Survey data in health research is often based on answers from respondents who are medical laypeople. Respondents may systematically over- or underestimate the occurrence of a particular disease, i.e. the statistical error (false positive, false negative) is systematically biased by the respondents ́ degree of health knowledge and sensitivity to symptoms, which in turn depends on the educational background, gender and so on. Educational background is highly correlated with the degree of health knowledge, which is needed to identify a physical or mental state as “disease”. The more complex the symptoms (as with mental diseases, for example), the more health knowledge is needed in order to classify the symptoms as being connected with a disease or condition.

The conference should shed more light on these social mechanisms creating systematic biases in health data. Presentations could focus on the following theoretical, empirical or methodological issues:

Which data type (register versus survey data) is affected by which biases?

Which systematic biases in register data occur due to systematic differences in...

... access and usage of medical care?

... physicians ́ diagnoses?

... the decision for and against medical treatment?

... the decision for ambulant versus stationary treatment?

How is survey data biased by determinants such as health knowledge?

Regarding known biases of survey methodology: What is special about health data?



We have a number of preferences within the topic of "bias in health data": First, we are especially interested in presentations focusing on bias es in measures of health. Biases in other data (e.g. prevalence of risk factors or socioeconomic status) are also relevant and presentations dealing with such related topics will also be considered. Second, we are mostly interested in biases that pertain to data used in health research and less in general biases already well-known from general survey methodology. Finally, we focus more on biases based on social mechanisms (e.g. due to different perceptions of health in different social groups) than e.g. on the technical problem of moving from one version of the International Classification of Diseases to the next.

We will also provide an extra time slot for presentations that deal with other topics of sociology of medicine and health.

Please submit your abstract (about one page) via email to rasmus.hoffmann@eui.eu and cgross@soziologie.uni-kiel.de by
31 May 2013. Letters of acceptance/rejection will be sent by 21 June 2013.

A small conference fee will be charged to cover two meals, coffee, water and snacks. More detailed information about the location, conference schedule and accommodation options will be provided by the end of June. The best presentations will be selected and presenters will be invited to submit a full paper after the conference to be published in a special issue volume of an international health journal edited by Christiane Gross and Rasmus Hoffmann.

Organization:

Rasmus Hoffmann (European University Institute/Erasmus Medical Center)

Christiane Gross (University of Kiel)

Call for Presentations & Posters: American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry Annual Meeting

March 14-17, 2014 Orlando, Florida

The American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry Annual Meeting Program Committee invites you to submit a proposal for consideration for the 2014 Annual Meeting to be held in Orlando, Florida, March 14 – March 17, 2014. The AAGP 2014 conference theme focuses on EMPOWER AGING representing a broad array of topics that impact older adults and their mental health. We invite you to submit a proposed session, clinical case, or poster for this dynamic and exciting meeting.

There are many venues at the AAGP Annual Meeting that invite innovative and interactive programs targeted towards clinicians, researchers, and educators. Clinicians and investigators in all arenas of geriatric psychiatry, psychology, neurology, medicine, nursing, social work, and other related disciplines are encouraged to submit abstracts of original work for presentation at the AAGP Annual Meeting. All submissions will be peer-reviewed by the 2014 AAGP Annual Meeting Program Committee. We request that all program proposals include some content on their applicability to clinical practice and with an interdisciplinary team approach. Please consider adding a newer member of the profession as part of your presenter panel. Additionally, submitters are encouraged to consider any special patient care needs of minority or underserved populations.             

Many people who attend the AAGP Annual Meeting do not attend any other scientific meeting. This is an important venue to present original research, new data, exciting clinical applications, service delivery initiatives, educational activities, and other pioneering work impacting our field today.

Submission Deadline.  You may save and edit your submission at any time prior to submitting it to AAGP. The submission deadlines are as follows:

General sessions:  June 11, 2013, 11:59 PM EDT.

Clinical Case presentations: June 11, 2013, 11:59 PM EDT

New Research poster abstracts: October 1, 2013, 11:59 PM EDT

Early Investigator poster abstracts:  October 15, 2013, 11:59 PM EDT

Late-breaking poster abstracts: January 15, 2013, 11:59 PM EST

Questions?  Contact AAGP at 301-654-7850 ext. 105 or meetinginfo@aagponline.org if you have questions regarding the submission criteria or the Annual Meeting.

Call for Papers: 43rd Annual Association of Black Sociologists Conference Social (In)Justice and Health Disparities: A Continuing Saga

August 8-10, 2013 New York, New York

Chronic illness and disease constitute major societal problems in the United States. These problems include, but are not limited to, obesity, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, and cancer.  Marginalized populations, and people of color in particular, are disproportionately affected by chronic illness. These populations are also less likely to have access to or receive appropriate and timely care and treatment. These health disparities are socially and economically detrimental to the health of society at large. Given the gravity of growing health disparities it is without question that serious investigation by sociologists, economists, psychologists, health care workers, and scholars and practitioners from other disciplines is needed.

It is within the Black sociology tradition of engaging in applied sociological research that we welcome the submission of papers for the 2013 Association of Black Sociologists conference. We aim to bring together professionals from multiple fields to develop solutions that will impact social policy. We especially welcome submissions focusing on problem solving and social policy initiatives aimed at eliminating health disparities in the United States and beyond.  Papers that examine traditional substantive, theoretical, and methodological topics are also welcomed.  All interested individuals are invited to submit formal papers, fully constituted sessions/panels, open refereed roundtables, and poster sessions.

To be considered, all submissions must be made on the 2013 ABS Conference Submission Form. Forms can be submitted electronically on the conference web site, or can be downloaded, completed, and e-mailed to President-Elect and Program Committee Chair Thomas Calhoun. All presenters, discussants, and session organizers must be current members of ABS and must register for the conference by the early registration deadline of June 30, 2013. The final deadline for paper submissions is July 15, 2013. No paper or session submissions will be accepted after this deadline.

Name and presentation information for individuals not registered for the conference by July 15, 2013 will NOT appear in the final program.