About the Conference

A unique gathering of maternal and child health academic leaders will take place in Rochester, New York on October 22-24, 1999. This invitational meeting, the Rochester Child Health Congress, will bring together some of the most distinguished individuals in many fields which ultimately influence children's health and well-being.

This meeting will be broadcast live on the Internet and will be archived for later viewing. If you participate in the live conference you can participate in the live discussion at the conference. More technical information will be available here on how to connect to the live event as we get closer to the actual date of this event.

It will be a very exciting event as key representatives from government, foundations, and business will be on hand to participate in the discussion. Progress on children's health to date will be reviewed, and new ideas will be shared and generated, resulting in innovative strategies to affect child health practices and public policy in every state and community in the United States.

In addition, approximately 50 promising professionals in child health related fields, chosen for their leadership potential, will be in attendance. These future leaders will have the opportunity to interact with and learn from accomplished experts, and to participate in the setting of the child health agenda for the early part of the 21st Century. Within a year of the Congress, a special follow-up workshop will take place for these individuals, providing them with the opportunity to develop and enhance leadership and advocacy skills.

Congress goals

The Congress will be framed in the context of the World Health Organization's definition of "health" as a "state of physical, psychosocial, and emotional well-being."

The goals of the Congress are:

• To gather the current multidisciplinary preeminent leaders who significantly influence child health policy together with potential leaders in the early part of their careers, to discuss, debate, and identify the most pressing unmet child and family issues that effect children's health.
• To set the agenda, methods,and timeframe for developing an interdisciplinary approach to resolving these unmet needs in the 21st century.
• To plan for ongoing activities needed to progress toward implementation of the agenda set forth at this Congress.
• To begin development of a longitudinal plan for monitoring the change in outcomes of these unmet child health needs as a result of this program.
• To prepare the next generation of child health leaders to address and resolve these issues through a series of multidisciplinary leadership and advocacy training programs.

This web site created by the Center for the Advancement of Distance Education at the University of Illinois School of Public Health.