After months of preparation, the Genomics Forum’s Program Committee’s has finalized the business meeting and scientific sessions for APHA’s 137th Annual Meeting, being held in Philadelphia, November 7th - 11th. As you plan to make the most out of your APHA experience meeting this year (see James O’Leary’s post, The Infinite Meeting), please keep in mind all of the Forum’s activities:
The Forum will be kicking off its Philadelphia experience with the Genomics Forum’s Annual Business meeting at 8am on Sunday. All are invited to participate in this great opportunity to meet and network with public health professionals who are interested in genomics. This is also the time of year when each committee will update the general membership on their activates and seek your input to achieve their goals and objectives for the coming year, either through brainstorming or becoming involved via a leadership position.
We will round off Sunday with the Forum’s poster session from 2:30-3:30, which will be a broad overview of many timely, relevant, and important aspects of genomics and genetics research in public health settings.
Throughout Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the Forum will be hosting 7 oral sessions, as well as co-sponsoring an additional 10 sessions with various APHA groups.
The first oral presentation, “Novel applications of genomics and family health history in public health”, will begin at 8:30 Monday morning. This session will explore the way that family health history is currently being used, as well as the influence that race and ethnicity plays, in framing ideas around personalized medicine and genomics.
The second oral presentation, “Communicating genetic and genomic risks to the public” , will be Monday at 10:30. This session will include presentations on both communications about and understanding of genetic information. The utility of a toolkit in facilitating discussion within families and with healthcare providers about family health history will be examined. Additionally, the impact of both age and reported racial background on understanding of genetics will also be explored. Finally, a report on the factors influencing interest in SNP testing for colon cancer risk will be given. Implications for the development of public health policy about how to best communicate genetic information will be presented.
The final oral presentation on Monday is “Genomics and health disparities” at 4:30 pm. This session will examine the problem of healthcare disparities within the context of genetics. Barriers to adequate services can be concrete, such as the geographical separation of a population from available sub-specialists. Complex language and high grade level readability for information from direct to consumer genetic testing companies can lead to inadequately informed consumers. The inclusion of minorities in research is also critical if the entire U.S. population is to benefit from advances in genomics. Finally, the importance of exploration of a minority’s understanding of genetics is underscored by a presentation discussing the impact of Korean-Americans’ concept of “matching” on their willingness to be enrolled in the National Marrow Donor Program.
We will start Tuesday off at 10:30 with the oral session entitled “Translational research in genomics and public health education”. In this session, explorations of and possible solutions to these needs will be presented. Recently, three recommendations from the EGAPP (Evaluation of Genetics in Practice and Prevention) initiative were published, representing a step forward in establishing a mechanism for evaluation of the utility of research tests in clinical practice. Another presentation will highlight the importance of establishing ethical and legal guidelines for the use of the large-scale genomics data-sets that are critical for this field. The Personal Genome Project will be explored as a positive example of responsible research. The impact of genetic information on individuals and their families must also be explored as an essential component of translation. The importance of a family history of lung cancer on risk perception for this condition will be presented, highlighting the importance of investigation of subgroup perceptions when considering policy and education strategies for improving health outcomes. Finally, findings from a prospective study on communication of parental genetic information to their children about genetic test results for BRCA1/2 will be discussed.
Tuesday afternoon will include back-to-back sessions on direct to consumer genetic testing. The first session will being at 2:30 (Direct to consumer genetic testing and personalized medicine: What does it mean for the public’s health?) and will be a panel of complementary speakers addressing key public health research and policy questions from several interdisciplinary perspectives. They will address current scientific progress in the field and its potential clinical and policy impacts, impact on public health of direct-to-consumer testing, the industry perspective on incorporating genomic information into screening and treatment strategies, and the potential for health disparities in the widespread clinical adoption of genetically-targeted therapies, including the ethical, legal and social issues. The second session will begin at 4:30 and is entitled “Genetic testing and information available direct to consumer”. This session brings together genetic counselors, a molecular biologist, and a researcher with expertise in carrier testing in the Ashkenazi Jewish population to present the scientific, consumer, and ethical aspects of providing genetic information directly to consumers. How to ensure the DTC market is properly managed will be discussed.
Finally on Wednesday morning, we will host our final oral session at 8:30 “Public education, social justice, and advocacy in genomics”. This session will focus on various contributions to our understanding of the importance of public education and advocacy to the field of public health genomics. The Access To Credible Genetics Resources Network (ATCG-RN) project, the BioCONECT curriculum, the Advocacy Coalition Framework, and the importance of social marketing that addresses the needs and interests of a specific community (i.e. the Deaf community as an example of a cultural and linguistic minority) will be discussed.
For the complete list of Forum’s programs, including the co-sponsored sessions, please be sure to visit us on the APHA website.
See you Philadelphia!
-H. Dean Hosgood
Genomics Forum Blog
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Upcoming Elections
*Each committee is looking for new co-chairs!
*The Forum is looking for a new Secretary!
If you are interested in these positions or would like to nominate someone please contact James O'Leary (Co-Chair) at joleary@geneticalliance.org. Please note the call for nominations will be sent out by e-mail in October.
General Membership Meeting Recap!
The Forum had a GREAT general membership call on Wednesday. It was wonderful to speak to all of you who joined us and I wanted to do a quick recap for those of you who were not able to.
We spent some time discussing the upcoming annual meeting including what sessions will be held and the schedule for the day of the business meeting. The Membership and Communications Committee is working to review and develop new materials to hand out at the meeting. We will also have live blogging throughout the meeting to keep those who cannot be in PA up to speed! This is a new adventure for the Forum and we hope it succeeds and is helpful to our members. Another new thing for the event this year is the Policy Committee has been working very diligently on a policy for APHA. The committee will be brining the draft to the meeting to get any feedback members have on improving it before the final submission in winter.
Summary:
*Business meeting is coming up! We hope to see you all there or have you join us online for the live blogging experience.
*Elections are fast approaching and we are starting nominations soon! (See additional post for more information)
*Bi-weekly e-mails are going to begin being sent to update members on what is currently being posted on our blog
*For minutes from this call which include much more detail please visit our website at www.GenomicsForum.org
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
The Infinite Meeting
As conference season approaches once again, I find myself wondering how I can get the most out of each meeting. From presenting, to networking, to exhibiting, each conference allows me to reconnect with colleagues, meet new people in my field, and gather valuable information. But, why do I get the feeling that I’m starting over with each new meeting? Why isn’t there any continuity? How can the lessons learned from one meeting build naturally into the next?
As with any question, there is always a personal and a systems level answer. I think that personally, I can bring my experiences with me and share them. I can also follow up with contacts, invite people to future meetings, and send them updates using the tools of the Genomics Forum and Genetic Alliance.
I am also interested in what we can do to stop being separate organizations and start being one community. How do we systemically maximize the effort that we are each expending every year? Here are a few ideas I’ve heard about or have been pondering lately. I invite you to post some of your own.
1) Open space technologies
Most meetings I attend have an abstract process that requires presenters to determine relevant topics a year before the meeting. What if we injected some openness into the meetings that let people self-aggregate around topics they think are important? We can use open space technologies to allow participants to choose in the moment, when they’re surrounded by the information and their neurons are firing.
2) Repeating themes
We all attend multiple meetings every year where we hear the same topics over and over again. There must be a better way to combine all of those presentations into a more productive format. It would be interesting to look at each season’s meetings, and then invite the speakers to give their presentations in a webinar format. Think of them as multi-disciplinary informational webinars that devote significant time to the question, “What do we do next?”
3) Two places at one time
There have been some interesting forays into virtual meetings in the past few years. In addition, we have seen numerous organizations blog, tweet, and stream updates about their meetings as they are in progress. It is time to take these efforts to the next level. How can we look at creating a seamless platform between meetings? How can we link up concurrent meetings so that participants can interact with each other? How can we truly involve participants that cannot attend due to travel, disability, or conflicts? A reality is that many organizations make money off of their meetings, but we can be more efficient and creative with how we look at participation.
As with any question, there is always a personal and a systems level answer. I think that personally, I can bring my experiences with me and share them. I can also follow up with contacts, invite people to future meetings, and send them updates using the tools of the Genomics Forum and Genetic Alliance.
I am also interested in what we can do to stop being separate organizations and start being one community. How do we systemically maximize the effort that we are each expending every year? Here are a few ideas I’ve heard about or have been pondering lately. I invite you to post some of your own.
1) Open space technologies
Most meetings I attend have an abstract process that requires presenters to determine relevant topics a year before the meeting. What if we injected some openness into the meetings that let people self-aggregate around topics they think are important? We can use open space technologies to allow participants to choose in the moment, when they’re surrounded by the information and their neurons are firing.
2) Repeating themes
We all attend multiple meetings every year where we hear the same topics over and over again. There must be a better way to combine all of those presentations into a more productive format. It would be interesting to look at each season’s meetings, and then invite the speakers to give their presentations in a webinar format. Think of them as multi-disciplinary informational webinars that devote significant time to the question, “What do we do next?”
3) Two places at one time
There have been some interesting forays into virtual meetings in the past few years. In addition, we have seen numerous organizations blog, tweet, and stream updates about their meetings as they are in progress. It is time to take these efforts to the next level. How can we look at creating a seamless platform between meetings? How can we link up concurrent meetings so that participants can interact with each other? How can we truly involve participants that cannot attend due to travel, disability, or conflicts? A reality is that many organizations make money off of their meetings, but we can be more efficient and creative with how we look at participation.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
