Public Health3 2023: Deutschland – Österreich – Schweiz
20. und 21. Januar 2023 / Hotel Bayerischer Hof, Lindau, Deutschland
In grey and snowy January 2023, the Public Health3 conference took place in Lindau, Germany. The bi-annual conference is a familiar and somehow informal get together organized by the Public Health Associations of the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland). This years edition was hosted by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Public Health DGPH, the German Public Health Association presenting the conference title: “Public Health Research to Action – How can this succeed?”. Sarah Mantwill from the Swiss Learning Health System SLHS (Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine at the University of Lucerne) opened with her key note presentation the conference followed by Thomas Altgeld from Landesvereinigung für Gesundheit und Akademie für Sozialmedizin Niedersachsen e. V. reporting from real life implementation of initiatives on health promotion and prevention.
On the first day we immersed into projects where the exchange or connection between science, policy and/or practice has worked well (or not so well). Presenters shared their lessons learned and in two parallel sessions engaged in discussions with the audience.
After two days of almost constant nodding while listening and taking notes, presenting my own work and benefiting from senior researchers my key take home messages, out of all the discussions are:
1. Researchers must go “out there”, talk to and work with people- ideally from problem formulation to evaluation of an intervention.
2. Policy and Politics happen behind closed curtains “at the apéro”- if research should be put to action, researchers must go there (somehow).
3. Work with administrative staff (e.g., Bundesämter, Departemente)- those are the people who process and follow-up topic specific work.
PH3 was the perfect first experience of attending a conference on my own 🙂