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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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