Oregon Public Health Association 2013

These three programs of interviews from the Oregon Public Health Association meetings in 2013 are not a comprehensive summary of the meetings in October, but the voices you'll hear do include the past and current OPHA presidents; keynote speakers on both days; two Oregon public health leaders; and four speakers at sessions.

In the first one, Dr. Ted Schettler, Science Director of the Science and Environmental Health Network,  talks with me about environmental health concerns and about policies that need to be changed to protect human health and the environment. For example, we talk about the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 and the science underlying policies and actions to restrict carbon in the atmosphere.

The second one features a conversation with Tom Eversole, past president of the Oregon Public Health Association; Jae Douglas, Director of the Center for Prevention and Promotion, within the Public Health division of the Oregon Health Authority; and Kari Lyons-Eubanks, who works on helping Multnomah County communities develop resilience to climate change.

The third program features a conversation with Lillian Shirley, Director of the Public Health division at the Oregon Health Authority, about health transformation and ways to better integrate personal medical care with public health. Following are three interviews with researchers about their posters at OPHA -- one concerning medical ethics in general and Physicians Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) in particular; one on public health work with the Hmong community in California; and one on public health education in Tanzania. The final segment is a conversation with Brian Johnson of Lane County Public Health, the new President of the Oregon Public Health Association.   --Roberta Hall