Combatting Health Inequalities – Putting Ethics into Practice

Spring CPME Board and General Assembly

26th April 2013 - The IMO is hosting the Spring CPME Board and General Assembly meeting, which is taking place today Friday 26th until 27th April 2013. As part of the meeting, a special session on ‘Combatting Health Inequalities – Putting Ethics into Practice’ will take place this morning to discuss and debate all aspects of Health Inequalities including how it effects the development of European public health policy and how the issue of health inequality can be addressed.

The conference will be opened on Friday by CPME president Dr Katrin Fjeldsted and IMO President Dr Matt Sadlier. Dr Paul McKeown, IMO Immediate Past President will deliver the keynote address. Dr Paul McKeown said; “The theme of the conference is Combatting Health Inequalities and one of the major topics to be discussed will be putting ethics into practice. There is significant debate around this at the moment and the challenge for us as healthcare professionals is to advocate for the development of effective polices that address factors including poverty, inequality, social exclusion, employment, income and education.”

The conference will investigate health inequalities during two sessions on Friday morning. The opening session “Improving policies; tackling health inequalities through European co-operation” will look at policy initiatives that already exist at European level and how social determinants of health can be addressed. The second session “Learning from good practice: tackling health inequalities on the ground” will focus on the current economic crisis and how this affects health inequalities and best practices.

Doctors will take part in a number of working group meetings on Friday afternoon which will look at tobacco policy, the European Directive on the Recognition of Professional Qualifications, medical devices, eHealth, mental health, antimicrobial resistance and healthy aging. Policy positions addressing a wide range of health related topics will be discussed and decided during the board and general assembly meetings taking place on Saturday.

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