Tenth annual Lancet Palestinian Health Conference held in Amman

The Institute of Community and Public Health at Birzeit University (ICPH), and the Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) at the American University of Beirut jointly organized the tenth annual conference of the Lancet Palestinian Health Alliance (LPHA), held in Amman, Jordan, on March 27 and 28, 2019. This year, Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST) hosted the conference.

A total of 200 participants from Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Qatar, the Emirates, Sudan, Norway, Italy, the UK, France, Japan, the USA, and Canada attended the conference that opened with welcoming remarks by the president of JUST, Dr. Saeb Khrisat. On behalf of Birzeit University, President Abdullatif Abuhijleh and Vice President for Community Affairs Asem Khalil welcomed the participants.

In the introductory session, the chair of the LPHA Steering Group, Graham Watt, reviewed the development and current status of LPHA and Tamara Lucas highlighted the conference’s contributions, tasks and challenges ahead.

Of the 320 abstracts submitted to the conference this year, 26 were chosen for oral presentation and 69 for poster presentation.  The oral presentation sessions addressed issues related to the Great March of Return in the Gaza Strip and covered topics such as the appraisal of instruments to conduct clinical tests, the social and political determinants of health, adolescent and child health, conflict and health, mental health, cancer survival, and risk control and experience. Participants also discussed a report on the situation of UNRWA in Palestine.

With ICPH currently holding the secretariat of the LPHA, this conference was the culmination of several activities that focused on the training and capacity strengthening of young researchers who undertake health research, conducted throughout the past academic year and held mostly at ICPH.

The location of LPHA’s annual conference alternates between Birzeit (hosted by ICPH), Beirut (hosted by FHS), and Amman (hosted by JUST). Next year, the conference will be held at Birzeit University.

The conference ended with a celebration of ten years of LPHA conferences and activities; it included soliciting the views of participants on how they would like to see LPHA develop in the future.