Cancelled due to a lack of funding (01.08.2010)

Organized in collaboration with the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center College of Nursing

The conference goal is to present effective models of communication for strengthening community resilience during pandemic influenza. Community resilience is the capacity of our communities to care for the sick at home and successfully meet the evolving challenges occurring during a pandemic. A resilient community effectively uses all available resources reducing the burden on the health care system.

The conference design utilizes the internet so that presenters can broadcast from various locations, allowing us to recruit acknowledged experts from throughout the country. The discussion will compare and contrast risk communication and public health education with an emphasis on collaboration between the public and the health care system.

Objectives:

To evaluate the use of current communication strategies in order to identify what works, what doesn't work and how we can improve in the future.

To enhance current communication strategies about pandemic influenza based on knowledge from historical pandemic events.  Learning from history will allow us not to repeat our mistakes.

To compare and contrast a public health model for community education based on benchmarks with risk communication models. These benchmarks can justify a major shift in strategy and provide useful tools for monitoring progress.

To discuss the impact of health literacy research on community education during a pandemic. Understanding why an action is in one's own best interests (and the best interests of their family) is important.

As planned the conference will feature national speakers in the morning and local speakers in the afternoon.  Discussions will focus on specific concerns such as how to modify information for various groups related to culture, health literacy and disabilities.