Conference Day 1, October 16th 2014

Plenary Session 1

1.1 The economic and social value of prevention in policy development

Professor Kevin A. Fenton MD, PhD, FFPH
National Director for Health and Wellbeing, Public Health England, UK

Professor Kevin Fenton, MD, PhD, FFPH, is the Public Health England National Director for Health and Wellbeing. In this role he oversees PHE’s national prevention programmes including screening for cancer and other conditions, Health Checks, national health marketing campaigns, public mental health, and a range of wellbeing programmes for infants, youth, adults and older adults. The Health and Wellbeing Directorate also leads PHE’s Health Equity portfolio with a range of programmes and activities focused on addressing the social determinants of health, and promoting settings-based approaches to health improvement.

Professor Fenton was previously the director of the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a position he held for seven years from November 2005. He also served as chief of CDC’s National Syphilis Elimination Effort and has worked in research, epidemiology, and the prevention of HIV and other STDs since 1995. Previously he was the director of the HIV and STI Department at the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency.

At CDC, Dr. Fenton led a number of critical efforts to address the U.S. HIV epidemic, including the release of revised HIV screening recommendations to make HIV testing a routine part of medical care for all Americans, and the implementation of a new surveillance system to provide more precise estimates of new HIV infections in the United States. Under Dr. Fenton’s leadership, CDC expanded its efforts to engage, mobilize, and partner with at-risk communities to address health disparities, and CDC launched Act Against AIDS, the first national HIV/AIDS public health communications campaign in 20 years. He championed the need for more integrated and comprehensive approaches to HIV, hepatitis, STD and TB prevention through the launch of major NCHHSTP initiatives including Program Collaboration and Service Integration, and Prevention through Healthcare. He strengthened and expanded the Center’s commitment to addressing Health Equity by focusing on the social and structural determinants of health.

He is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom; and a visiting professor in Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London. He also serves as a member or on the boards of a number of charitable organizations, government committees, and peer-reviewed journals related to HIV and STD prevention and sexual health research. Dr. Fenton has received numerous awards, including a Telly Award for the Discovery Health CME program on “Comorbidities of HIV/AIDS”; the Leader to Leader Award; the Thurlow Tibbs Award; the Community Health Advocate Award; and the Gerald A. Ludd Lifetime Achievement Award for Dedication and Commitment in HIV/AIDS Prevention, among others.

He attended medical school in Jamaica, obtained his master’s in public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and PhD in Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the University College London. He has authored or co-authored more than 250 peer-reviewed scientific articles and policy reports. He is a speaker in great demand and speaks Spanish and French.

1.2 The economics of prevention

Dr Franco Sassi
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, FR

Franco Sassi, PhD, is a senior health economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). He is responsible for the OECD Economics of Prevention programme, aimed at supporting public policies to tackle major chronic diseases and risk factors for health, especially poor nutrition, physical inactivity, alcohol and tobacco use. He is the author of numerous publications on economic aspects of prevention, including the book “Obesity and the economics of prevention: Fit not fat”, in 2010. Previously, Franco was a senior lecturer in health policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and director of the graduate programme in Health Policy, Planning and Financing, one of the longest established health policy programmes worldwide. Franco obtained his doctorate in health economics from the University of London. The overarching theme of his research and publications has been the evaluation of health interventions. He held an adjunct professor position at the Université de Montréal, as well as visiting positions at a number of universities in the United States, including University of California at Berkeley, Harvard University, University of California at San Francisco, and Duke University, and at the Catholic University of Rome. He was awarded a 2000-01 Harkness Fellowship in Health Care Policy by the Commonwealth Fund.

Conference Day 2, 17th October 2014

Scientific Round Table: Strategies to compare the costs and benefits of prevention?

Main Speaker: Stephanie Lee
Washington State Institute for Public Policy, USA

Stephanie Lee is a Senior Research Associate at the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP), a non-partisan organization created by the legislature to carry out practical research on issues of importance to Washington. She studied experimental psychology at Trinity University and at Washington University in St. Louis. Stephanie began her career in prevention research at the British charity Communities that Care (UK). She has been at WSIPP since 2007. Her primary responsibility is to identify and evaluate the research evidence for programs and policies that impact children and families. This work is centered on estimating the long-term economic impacts of strategies to improve outcomes for people in the state of Washington. She develops and maintains the WSIPP benefit-cost software tool, which has become instrumental in decision-making in Washington State and elsewhere. Stephanie also leads WSIPP’s work with the Results First initiative, a collaboration between the MacArthur Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts. This project aims to develop and extend the capability of WSIPP’s benefit-cost analytic software, and to support other states in the USA in using the WSIPP benefit-cost approach in their own specific contexts. In the UK, Stephanie coordinates WSIPP’s collaboration with the Social Research Unit, supporting the UK adaptation of the benefit-cost tool.

Plenary Session 2

2.1 The role of economic interests in the development of European prevention policy

Peter Anderson, MD, MPH, PhD, FRCP
Professor, Substance Use, Policy and Practice, Institute of Health and Society, Newcastle University, England; Professor, Alcohol and Health, Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Maastricht University, Netherlands

Dr Anderson is an international expert in the impact of alcohol and addictions on health and well-being, and in the impact of policies and programmes to reduce the harm done by alcohol, tobacco and addictions. From 1992 to 2000, he worked as the regional advisor for both tobacco and alcohol with the European Office of the World Health Organization and directed the Department of Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. He is an adviser in public health, alcohol, tobacco and addictions to the European Commission and the African, European, Western Pacific and Headquarters offices of the World Health Organization. He was the international coordinator of the European Commission co-financed AMPHORA project, and is the international coordinator of the European Commission co-financed ALICE RAP project, studying addictions and lifestyles in contemporary Europe. He has brought science to policy across a range of public h
ealth issues for several governments, intergovernmental organizations and public and private sector think tanks around the world. He has over 150 publications in international peer reviewed journals, is the author or editor of some 15 books and has published 12 monographs on addictions for the European Commission and the World Health Organization.

Conference Day 3, 18th October 2014

Plenary Session 3

3.1 Acceptability of Population Level Interventions

Professor Theresa Marteau
Director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit at the Institute of Public Health University of Cambridge, UK

Professor Theresa Marteau is Director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit at the Institute of Public Health University of Cambridge (funded by the Department of Health as the Policy Research Unit on Behaviour and Health). She studied social psychology at the London School of Economics and clinical psychology at the University of Oxford.

Her research interests include: i. the development and evaluation of interventions to change behaviour (principally diet, physical activity, tobacco and alcohol consumption) to improve population health and reduce health inequalities, with a particular focus on targeting non conscious processes; i i. risk perception and communication particular of biomarker-derived risks, and their weak links with behaviour change; iii. the role of evidence for behaviour change in policy.

She is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and of the Academy of Social Sciences.

Pre-conference workshops were convened with our SPAN partners on the 15th October. Workshops ran simultaneously from 0930-1530.

The two workshops were:

1. Optimising behavioural interventions – The MOST model and understanding effective prevention programme components – Prof Linda Collins, Penn State University (USA), and Prof Fabrizio Faggiano, Avogadro University (IT)

2. Economic analysis and the cost effectiveness of prevention – Introduction to Economic Evaluation of Health Care Interventions – Dr Claire McKenna and Ms Rita Faria, Centre for Health Economics, University of York, (UK)

An overview of the workshops can be found below.

As part of SPAN’s aim to establish stronger links to professional networks, they offered between 10 – 15 bursaries of up to €500 to young prevention scientists (PhD Students, Post docs) to assist in travel and accommodation costs associated with EUSPR/SPAN workshop attendance. Please note that applications for bursaries are now closed.

1. Optimising behavioural interventions – the MOST model and understanding effective prevention programme components – Prof Linda Collins, Penn State University (USA), and Prof Fabrizio Faggiano, Avogadro University (IT)

The multiphase optimization strategy (MOST) is a comprehensive, principled, engineering-inspired framework for optimising and evaluating multicomponent behavioural interventions. MOST includes a randomised, controlled trial (RCT) for intervention evaluation, but unlike the standard approach to intervention development, also includes other steps before the RCT. These steps are aimed at intervention optimisation using criteria selected by the scientist. The goal may be to develop a cost-effective intervention, an intervention that achieves a specified level of effectiveness, the briefest intervention that achieves a minimum level of effectiveness, or any other reasonable goal. The MOST framework relies heavily on resource management by strategic use of highly efficient experimental designs. MOST is designed to be practical, and holds out the possibility of achieving more rapid long-run improvement of interventions without a dramatic increase in intervention research resources.

The workshop is aimed at anyone who is interested in the development and evaluation of a broad variety of behavioural interventions. The day will begin with an overview of research undertaken by Prof Faggiano which has highlighted the challenges inherent in trying to understand the efficacy of prevention programme components. The session will then introduce the rationale and motivation for MOST, the framework and phases of MOST, and how a researcher would conduct a study using MOST.  The workshop explores the design of screening experiments and includes plenty of opportunities for open discussion to understand how MOST might be applied to areas of interest to workshop attendees.  At the end of the workshop attendees will be able to decide whether MOST would be helpful in their own research.

See the Penn State University website for further details on the Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST): https://methodology.psu.edu/ra/most

Please follow the link for the Workshop 1 timetable:

Workshop 1 Timetable

2. Economic analysis and the cost effectiveness of prevention – Introduction to Economic Evaluation of Health Care Interventions – Dr Claire McKenna and Ms Rita Faria, Centre for Health Economics, University of York, (UK)

Economic evaluation offers an explicit and transparent framework for the comparison of costs and health benefits of different interventions in order to help inform decisions on which interventions represent the best use of resources. An economic evaluation involves identifying the different interventions available to address the decision problem, measuring and valuing the costs and health benefits, and exploring the impact of uncertain parameters on the results.

This workshop introduces the different forms of economic evaluation (e.g. cost-minimisation analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, cost-utility analysis, cost-benefit analysis), the methods used to conduct an economic evaluation, and how to critically appraise published studies in the context of decision-making. It starts with an overview of the basic economic concepts underpinning economic evaluation in health care, namely opportunity cost, efficiency and equity. This is followed by a step-by-step guide on how to conduct an economic evaluation using a ten-point checklist as a template for study design and critical appraisal. It includes: (i) definition of the economic question, (ii) perspective of the evaluation, (iii) identification, measurement and valuation of the costs and health outcomes, (iv) analytic methods of cost-effectiveness analysis, (v) dealing with uncertainty, and (vi) interpretation of the results. The workshop finishes with a case study for group discussion. The case study will demonstrate how to apply economic evaluation in practice and how to use the results for making decisions. This workshop is of interest to prevention professionals wishing to understand economic evaluation and the application of methods to preventative care.

Centre for Health Economics, University of York website

Please follow the link for the Workshop 2 timetable:

Workshop 2 Timetable

Workshop 2 convener biographies:

Please follow the link for the Workshop 2 convener biographies:

Workshop 2 Convener Biographies

Pre-conference workshops – 15th October 2014

Please click here for more information. Workshops will run concurrently from 0930-1600. Registration from 0900.

1. Optimising behavioural interventions – the MOST model and understanding effective prevention programme components. Convened by Prof Linda Collins and Prof Fabrizio Faggiano. Room: Aula 1

2. Economic analysis and the cost effectiveness of prevention – Introduction to Economic Evaluation of Health Care Interventions. Convened by Dr Claire McKenna and Ms Rita Faria. Room: Aula 2

A complimentary lunch and coffee breaks will be provided to workshop delegates.

Conference Day 1 – 16th October 2014

EUSPR Members’ Meeting

09:30 – 10:30 Board Elections

10:30 – 11:00 Coffee break and networking

11:00 – 12:15 Members Meeting

12.30 – 13.00 Conference Registration (for Members’ Meeting attendees only)

13:00 – 13:45 Complimentary lunch for Members’ Meeting attendees only.

Conference start

13:00 – 14:00 Registration

14:00 – 15:00 Opening and salutations

• Hble. Sr. Martí Sansaloni (Conseller de Salut del Govern de les Illes Balears, ES)
• Sr. Antoni Aguiló (Vicerector de Campus, Cooperació i Universitat Saludable, UIB, ES)
• Sra. Sonia Moncada (Jefa del Área de Prevención de la Delegación del Gobierno para el Plan Nacional sobre Drogas, ES)
• Prof Harry Sumnall (EUSPR Board President)
• Dr Amador Calafat (President of IREFREA, ES)

15:00 – 16:30 Plenary Session 1
Chair: Rosaria Galanti; Room: Main hall

1.1 The economic and social value of prevention in policy development – Professor Kevin Fenton (Public Health England, UK)

1.2 The economics of prevention – Dr Franco Sassi (The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, FR)

16:30 – 17:30 Parallel Session 1 and complimentary drinks reception

Structured poster session and complimentary drinks reception.

Room: Exhibition hall

17:30 – 18:15 Special session 1

WSIPP/Investing in Children economic model – Nick Axford; Stephanie Lee; Gretchen Bjornstad

Room: Main hall

Conference Day 2 – 17th October 2014

09:30 – 10:30 Scientific Round Table: Strategies to compare the costs and benefits of prevention? 

Main Speaker: Stephanie Lee (Washington State Institute for Public Policy, USA) and expert responses

Chair: Fabrizio Faggiano; Room: Main hall

10:30 – 11:00 Coffee break and networking

11:00 – 12:45 Parallel Sessions 2

Session 2.1: The Strengthening Families Program in the USA and EU (Room: Main hall)
Session 2.2: Cost effectiveness and economic decision making (Room: Aula 1)
Session 2.3: Methodological challenges in prevention research (Room: Aula 2)

12.45 – 14:15 Lunch.

14:15 – 16:00 Parallel Sessions 3: Society and community

Session 3.1: Families and education in prevention (Room: Main hall)
Session 3.2: Exploring Universal and Family prevention (Room: Aula 1)
Session 3.3: Understanding and responding to risk behaviours (Room: Aula 2)

16:00 – 16:30 Coffee break and networking

16:30 – 17:15 Plenary Session 2

2.1 The role of economic interests in the development of European prevention policy – Professor Peter Anderson (Maastricht University, ND)

Chair: Gregor Burkhart; Room: Main hall

17:15 – 18:15 Special session 2

Communities that Care (CTC) in Europe. Community Diagnosis and Prevention Programmes – Frederick Groeger-Roth; Harrie Jonkman; Nick Axford

Room: Main hall

20.30 Conference dinner at Restaurant Pesquero (Must be booked separately, €35, not included in conference fee). Please click here for more information.

 

Conference Day 3 – 18th October

10:00 – 11:45 Parallel Sessions 4

Session 4.1: Open theme – health and wellbeing interventions (Room: Main hall)
Session 4.2: Supporting the use of prevention evidence in practice and policy making (Room: Aula 1)
Session 4.3: Post graduate and early career parallel session (Room: Aula 2)

11:45 – 12:15 Coffee break and networking

12:15 – 13:00 Plenary Session 3

3.1 Acceptability of Population Level Interventions – Professor Theresa Marteau (University of Cambridge, UK)

Chair: David Foxcroft; Room: Main hall

13:00 – 13:20 Poster Prize Giving, Welcome to the new EUSPR President, & Conference Close

Prof Harry Sumnall (EUSPR President, and Liverpool John Moores University, UK); Professor David Foxcroft (EUSPR President Elect, and Oxford Brookes University, UK)