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IEA World Congress Of Epidemiology Takes Place Virtually Under Australasian Sponsorship

Conference Is A Window On The Thinking Of Epidemiologists Today

“Data saves lives—but only if appropriately gathered, analyzed, and acted upon”, “Failing to collect accurate ethnicity data amounts to data genocide”, “What the general public want is the truth. They are sick to the teeth of obfuscating politicians. They don’t want things gilded, they want to hear it as it is”.

These are some of the statements that emerged from the recent World Congress of Epidemiology. It opened on September 4 with a moment of silence to acknowledge the more than 4.5 million people who have died from COVID-19 to date, and with particular mention of epidemiologists and public health workers

Among the topic areas covered  at the meeting were COVID-19, mental health, cardiovascular disease, health and equity, communicable diseases, data linkage, indigenous populations, environmental epidemiology, cancer, women and children’s health, medelian randomization, teaching epidemiology, and genetic epidemiology.

Background

After the in-person conference in Melbourne was cancelled in 2020 and again in 2021, the 22nd triennial meeting of the International Epidemiological Association (IEA) took place virtually in early September 2021 organized by the Australasian Epidemiological Association (AES) in collaboration with the IEA.

According to the Croakey Conference News Service which reported frequently on the meeting, the dual cancellations of the live meeting presented “a raft of challenges to its organizers in transitioning to a virtual event.”

Challenges

Linda Slack-Smith, social epidemiologist and professor in the School of Population and Global Health at the University of Western Australia and one of the co-conveners of the meeting, told The Epidemiology Monitor “The conference started as a traditional face to face conference and once the COVID-19 pandemic hit we had to monitor what was happening and decide on the best option between limited face to face, mixed mode, satellite approach (with possible face to face engagement in some centers). In the end online only was the best (and it turns out wise) option. But the pandemic showed us we had to be more agile, and I think the learnings will be useful for future local conferences. Also these considerations meant we had to really think our values and underlying goals in organizing the conference and equity and capacity building certainly featured in that.”

She told Croakey News there were real advantages to the virtual format, including the opportunity for persons who might not be able or be privileged enough to attend to participate actively.

Anthony LaMontagne, professor of Work, Health, and Well Being at Deakin University also a co-convener told Croakey News the organizers were able to offer full bursaries to over 200 delegates, an almost fourfold increase over previous meetings, to participate in early career workshops and short courses.

The Epidemiology Monitor reviewed the Croakey News Service reports and tweets about the meeting and selected several findings and comments to highlight. A special supplemental issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology containing the abstracts submitted for the meeting was published online in September at:  https://bit.ly/3zCSbVW

Selected Highlights

Brett Sutton, Chief Health Officer in Victoria, spoke early in the conference to highlight the role that epidemiology has played in Victoria’s response to the pandemic. He emphasized how epidemiologic data was “crucial” in being able to adapt and make decisions quickly with all the initial uncertainties that surrounded the limited knowledge about the new virus.

Abigail Echo-Hawk, Chief Research Officer for the Seattle Indian Health Board and Director of the Urban Indian Health Institute discussed the inequitable impact of COVID on American Indians and Alaskan Natives. She highlighted shortfalls in collecting adequate data on at-risk populations. In the news report of her presentation, she said “Come to us because you know we have the answers not because you think we have a problem.”

She shared a concept from the indigenous community which posits that She said that her remarks at the conference were the equivalent of her telling participants a story and asked “what changes will you make in your practice, organization, or government to ensure inclusion?”

Henrique Barros, President of the IEA, urged participants to build on “epidemiology’s time in the sun” to create a better epidemiology workforce and to focus more on equity. According to Barros “If we want a fair society and healthy world, we need to understand social inequalities and make epidemiology central.”

Communication Challenges

Given all the interactions with the public and the media which epidemiologists have been having during the Covid pandemic, observations made in a roundtable session on how best to communicate epidemiology to the public are of interest. Themes identified were that epidemiologists need a better partnership with the media, a need to explore other non-traditional ways of reaching the public, and to recognize that communicating during the early days of a pandemic is both an art and a science. There were calls for more media training of epidemiologists and more epidemiology training for journalists.

Policy

A session on policy making contrasted the way political scientists and epidemiologists use evidence in informing policies, distinguished the role of epidemiologists from that of politicians who make policy, noted that most media commentary on COVID was too complex for many persons in the community, and noted that epidemiology is only one thread in the stream of considerations of decision makers. Failing to note this can make scapegoats of epidemiologists and the example of the closure of Australian borders with China was used to illustrate this point.

Keynote Presentations

There were several keynote presentations during the conference including the Ian Prior oration given by Professor Diana Sarfati, National Director of a Cancer Control agency in New Zealand. She made several interesting observations about her agency and the role of epidemiology, including how epidemiologic data identified the disproportionate decrease in cancer diagnoses among Maori patients during the pandemic. These data were able to trigger an initiative to do catching up tests and treatments post-lockdown  in the Maori population.

Professor K Srinath Reddy, President of the Public Health Association of India, addressed the problems being posed in controlling the pandemic by misinformation and disinformation. He called epidemiologists and social scientists “Gemini twins” and urged collaboration to better understand the underlying drivers of fake news and information. The problem of fake news has been prevalent in Australia and there have been urgent calls to combat these negative influences on public health also through a multidisciplinary approach.

Professor Cesar Victora, Professor at the Federal University of Pelotas gave the closing Richard Doll Oration Prize and called for early career epidemiologists to conduct research to advance knowledge, promote change, and evaluate programs. He described an EPICOVID-19 project he has been involved with in Brazil that managed to do all three of these types of investigations. .It produced good sound epidemiologic findings, created an advocacy component by looking at ethnic differences, and helped to improve immunizations by reporting a 20%  decrease in childhood vaccinations during the pandemic.

On Attending Virtually

Abbey Diaz, a cancer researcher in the Wellbeing and Preventable Chronic Disease Division at Menzies Institute for Medical Research, was part of the WCE 2021 social media team and the Australasian Epidemiology Association's social media officer. She told The Epidemiology Monitor “I thoroughly enjoyed the Congress. I attended almost all sessions and took so much from the keynote presentations. I enjoyed the mix of methods, applied epidemiology, and disciplinary challenges.”

She added, “To ensure I didn't miss a good tweet, I was motivated to absorb the content. For the last five or so years, I have used live tweeting of conferences as a way of note taking and maintaining my focus. At the start and end of each day the social media team briefed and debriefed, which added a social element to the virtual event.”

According to Diaz, there was quite a lot of engagement via Twitter. Some people gave "tweetorials" about their conference abstract, some created threads summarizing the on demand content, and others used Twitter to start conversations related to the Congress content.

Said Diaz, “my favorite session, though, was the Early Career Researcher (ECR) breakfast social event. I caught up with people I haven't seen in a while and met a number of new people. It wasn't quite the same as meeting old friends at an in-person event, but it provided a boost of energy to get through the last day of the Congress.”

To access the series of nine reports on the Congress by Croakey Conference News Service, visit: https://bit.ly/3AGMozY


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