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The biennial conference of the International Association for Ecology and Health (the EcoHealth Association) to be held in London in 2010 will explore emerging areas in the field of ecohealth. These include: energy policy and health; ecological biodiversity as it relates to emerging infectious diseases; and participatory research.

 

Researchers and practitioners from over 70 countries attended the 2008 International EcoHealth Forum (IEF 2008) in Mérida, Mexico. The EcoHealth Association hopes that the London conference will attract more European members while maintaining a strong presence from Asia, Africa and the Americas, said Dr Jonathan Patz. “We want to take this around the world.”

An inclusive networking association, it does not compete with other associations. Rather, it seeks to “dovetail with either their meetings or with their membership activities to bring a more integrated and diverse group of people together toward solving our most complex global environmental public health challenges,” Dr Patz said.

 

The student section, “one of the strongest components of our Association,” Dr Patz said, “got jumpstarted coming out of the Forum [IEF 2008].” The students brought a lot of energy and excitement: “It’s the young minds coming into this that are probably the most valuable of all.”

The Mérida Forum had “the right mix of social sciences and natural sciences and health sciences and even some historians, I think. You get the right mix and you can come up with new, innovative insights,” Dr Patz said. “We had people working together and presenting together that had rarely been in that type of interdisciplinary forum.” According to Dr Patz, the “energy at the meeting was very high.”

 

Harnessing this enthusiasm and fostering interdisciplinary networking will be crucial for meeting the world’s future challenges, which require “many minds coming together.”

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