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Al Ain Meeting to Study Impact of 
Global Health Problems on Region

ABU DHABI — ‘Lifestyle’ diseases, global health problems impacting the region, new infectious diseases, burdens of mental health and women’s health problems are just some of the topics that will be discussed at next year’s health conference in Al Ain.

Around 60 of the world’s leading health scientists, researchers and clinicians are expected to attend the ‘Global Health and the UAE: Asia-Middle East Connections’ conference at the UAE University (UAEU), which will be held from January 4 to 8 . The discussions at the conference will aim at helping set the research agenda for 2010 onwards.

The conference will be officially opened by Shaikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research and Chancellor of the UAEU.

Sir Richard Feacham, Professor of Global Health at the University of California, will deliver the keynote address on the ‘Twenty-first Century Global Health: the Priority Agenda’.

The first day of the event will feature the emerging wave of ‘lifestyle’ diseases such as obesity-linked diabetes, strokes and cancer, and their relationship to new sources of income, food consumption, sedentary lifestyle and stress.

Dr Oliver Harrison, director of Public Health and Policy at the Health Authority-Abu Dhabi (HAAD), and Ali Al Marzooqi, director of Public Health and Safety Department at the Dubai Health Authority (DHA), are two key speakers who will discuss the global health problems and their impact on the UAE and the region on the second day.

The third day will focus on new infectious diseases such as SARS, avian flu and H1N1, the far-reaching implications of HIV/AIDS, and protracted addictions – tobacco, alcohol and other drugs – and their link to new production, distribution and control across the region.

The fourth day will examine the growing mental health burdens such as depression, anxiety, dementias, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide as a result of violence, ageing, urbanisation, stress, migration and trafficking.

The regional impacts of global climate change and food production economics, regulation and global programmes to reduce food insecurity in the Middle East and Asia will also be discussed on the same day.

The last day will cover problems facing women and their children in the region, including infectious diseases, infertility and genetic disorders linked to consanguinity.

Organised by the UAEU in collaboration with Yale University, the University of California, American University of Beirut, the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong and Unifob Global at the University of Bergen, Norway, the conference is being considered first of its kind on this scale.

olivia@khaleejtimes.com

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