Fatal Neglect: Forgotten issues in child health - A UCL Global Health Symposium

Link:

ucl.ac.uk/global-health/" target="_self">UCL Institute for Global Health

Members of the UCL community are invited to the next UCL Institute for Global Health Symposium, 'Fatal Neglect: Forgotten issues in child health', on 10 June 2009.

Every year nearly 10 million children die before reaching their fifth birthday; that translates to one child death every three seconds. Among those that do not die, even greater numbers fail to reach their physical and cognitive growth potential in adulthood as a result of the impacts of exposure to childhood infection and disease. Yet key challenges in child health continue to be neglected in the global-health agenda.

Three main conditions are responsible for the lion's share of childhood death in developing countries - pneumonia, diarrhoea and undernutrition. All are preventable and treatable via highly cost-effective interventions and yet the world still fails to prioritise them.

This symposium brings together experts from UCL, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), Save the Children, the World Health Organization (WHO) and 'The Lancet', to highlight the overlooked issues in child health and ignite action to address this crisis.

In particular the symposium will explore how water, sanitation and hygiene interventions are regarded as outside the health system, despite being central to the prevention of childhood diarrhoea, pneumonia and undernutrition. Health policy needs to be more comprehensive if child-health outcomes are to be secured in the developing world.

Speakers and panellists will include Mr David Mepham (Director of Policy, Save the Children UK), Dr Rhona MacDonald (Senior Editor, 'The Lancet'), Pascale Hoffman (UCL Development Planning Unit) and representation from LSHTM and the WHO. Professor Anthony Costello, Director of the UCL Institute for Global Health will chair the symposium.

Audience participation is a key aspect of these symposia.

• Wednesday 10 June 2009
  4.30-6.00pm, with drinks to follow
  JZ Young Lecture Theatre, Anatomy Building, UCL, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT
  Register