The Institute of Public Health, Public Health Agency, Ulster University, Queen’s University Belfast, and University College Cork are hosting an online public health conference on 30th November 2022.

The overarching theme of this one-day conference will be the relationship between climate change and health on the island of Ireland. 

In addition to keynote plenary sessions, the conference will also provide an opportunity to showcase the latest innovations, research and practice in parallel sessions.  

The organisers are now seeking abstract submissions from local professionals, practitioners and researchers on work that contributes to the planetary health agenda. We welcome submissions from across a range of disciplines, from public health and health systems to the environment, food, infrastructure and transport among others.  

We look forward to selecting a series of abstracts for presentation at the conference, either through a short oral presentation (15 minutes + 5 minutes for questions) or through a digital poster provided as a high quality PDF.

This is an extraordinary time with health crises seeming to come from every angle. Climate change is described by the World Health Organization as the ‘single biggest health threat facing humanity’; a threat to which the island of Ireland is not immune. Climate change impacts health both directly and indirectly and has a strong relationship with the determinants of health.

Whilst the harms posed by climate change are stark, action on climate change has substantial co-benefits for health. 

The World Health Organization produced a special report for COP-26 which sets the scene for the challenge before us and outlines 10 key recommendations for action.

These recommendations illustrate the breadth of this public health challenge and we encourage abstract submissions across any of these areas including resilient and sustainable health systems, urban environments, transport, sustainable food systems, climate justice and many more.

There is now a need for partnership working, knowledge-exchange and research to demonstrate the impact of climate change on the health of our local populations as well as interventions that are needed to protect our health and the planet.