The 9th International Conference on Public Health 2023
Speakers
Keynote Speakers

Prof. Axel Kaehne
Professor of Health Services Research
Medical School
Edge Hill University
England
Speech Title: “Public Health after the COVID Pandemic - Recovery and New Horizons”
Biography
Axel was born and educated in Berlin (Germany) at Free University and Humboldt University and subsequently studied at Aberdeen University and the University of Wales. He settled in South Wales in 1996. In 2005 he took up a position of Research Fellow at the School of Medicine, Cardiff University and joined Edge Hill as a Senior Research Fellow in April 2013. He was appointed Reader in Health Service Research in 2016 and is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Integrated Care. Axel is Visiting Professor at the Department of Health and Social Management at the University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio and currently President of EHMA, the European Health Management Association (Brussels).
Research interests
Axel has designed and delivered evaluations of health improvement programmes in England and Wales and is also member of the Children’s Nursing Research Unit at Alder Hey, the Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
Axel has an interest in programme evaluations, evaluation methodologies and quantitative and qualitative approaches to research. Leading on from his work in intellectual disabilities, he has developed a research focus on multiagency work, service integration and partnerships in health services for patients with complex health care needs. More recently he has written on complexity and complex adaptive systems as evaluative frameworks to assess health service programmes and patient outcomes.
He leads the Special Interest Group for Integrated Care of the European Health Management Association and works with colleagues across England to establish an Integrated Care Researcher Network.
Teaching
Post-Graduate Supervision and Teaching
Axel is teaching Research Methodologies, Quantitative Approaches and Statistics/SPSS on the MCh and MRes course of the Medical School and supervises currently three PhD students and several Master’s students.
Axel is leading a module in Strategic Clinical Leadership and leads the dissertation module for more than 65 students per cohort in the Masters in Surgery/ Masters in Medicine degree.
Speech Title: “Technology in Action: Examples from GOALD and ICONIC Projects”
Qualifications
- 1982–1986 PhD Health Informatics, University of Nottingham.
- 1975–1976 MSc Operational Research, University of Reading.
- 1970–1973 BSc Maths/Management 2I (Hons), QEC, Univ. London
- 1991 Postgrad cert in Health Economics (Aberdeen)
Professional qualifications
- 2001 FFPH Fellow Faculty of Public Health
- 2001 Chartered Information Technology Professional
- 1999 Hon MFPHM Hon.Member Faculty Public Health Medicine
- 1995 CEng Chartered Engineer
- 1989 MBCS Member British Computer Society
Please visit for more info: https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/staff/ray-jones

Dr. Ray Jones
Professor of Health Informatics
University of Plymouth,
UK
Plenary Speakers

Dr. Vania
Martínez-Nahuel M.D.
Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist,
Full Professor Faculty of Medicine – Universidad de Chile,
Director of the Millennium Nucleus Imhay,
Chile
Speech Title: “Nurturing Resilience: Technology, Equity, and Community in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Preparedness"
Bachelor of Medicine and Surgeon from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, specializing in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry from the University of Chile, Master’s in Clinical Psychology, Mention in Family and Couple Studies from the Diego Portales University (Chile) and Master in Psychotherapy from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She is a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Heidelberg (Germany) and a Doctor of Psychotherapy from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Double Degree Program).
In the academic field, she works as a Full Professor at the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Comprehensive Development of Adolescents (CEMERA) of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile. As an academic, she has been a tutor and co-tutor of Postgraduate students, contributing to the training of young scientists.
In the scientific field, she is currently an Associate Researcher at the Millennium Institute for Research in Depression and Personality (MIDAP). She has stood out for obtaining public competitive funds as Responsible Investigator, among them the FONDECYT Regular project No. 1161696 “Efficacy of a stepped program based on the Internet for the prevention and early intervention of depression in adolescents”; the FONDECYT Initiation project No. 11121637 “Efficacy of a computerized-assisted cognitive behavioral therapy for adolescent depression in primary care clinics in Santiago, Chile”, and the FONIS SA12I2294 project “Telepsychiatry to improve the management of depression in adolescents in health centers Primary health care in the Araucanía Region”. As Co-investigator she has participated in a significant number of projects, among which the project “Design and piloting of a telepsychiatry service to improve mental health care for children and adolescents with violation of rights and/or subject to the law on adolescent criminal responsibility” stands out, financed by the Contest Funds for the Development of Telemedicine Projects at the Clinical Hospital of the University of Chile; the CONICYT project PII20150035, International Cooperation Program “Affective Disorders and Personality: Disease Mechanisms and Mechanisms of Change in Psychological Interventions”, and the FONDECYT Regular project No 1130230 “Comprehensive Technology-Assisted Training and Supervision Program to Enhance Depression Management in Primary Care” , among others.
Regarding public government tenders, Dr. Martínez was part of the technical team of project ID 757-69-L116 (MINSAL, 2016), called “Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of interventions carried out in educational establishments for the prevention of behaviors suicides in school adolescents between 10 and 19 years of age: a systematic review”. In addition to being the professional in charge of giving suicide prevention workshops in the Bío-Bío and Maule regions.
Given her extensive clinical, academic, and research experience, she has been called upon to participate as an expert and adviser in relevant ministerial initiatives. Among them, she participated in the Technical Panel of Experts “Preparation of Technical Guidelines for the prevention of suicide in adolescents and young people”; she was part of the Expert Advisory Group for the preparation of the “Clinical Guide for the Treatment of Adolescents from 10 to 14 years old with Depression”; She is a member of the Mental Health Advisory Team of the Adolescents and Youth Program for updating the Document “Technical Guidelines for the Care of Adolescents with Mental Health Problems Directed at Primary Care Teams”, among others. In all these activities she was summoned by the Ministry of Health of Chile.
Dr. Martínez has a high scientific productivity, with close to 30 publications in the last 5 years and participation in a significant number of national and international conferences. In addition, she highlights her work in dissemination and training of human resources in the education and health sectors.
Speech Title: "Overview of Psychological Impact of Disasters"
Dr. Padmini D. Ranasinghe is an assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her areas of clinical expertise include hospital medicine, internal medicine, preventive medicine and public health. Dr. Ranasinghe serves as the director of education for the Hospitalist Program. Dr. Ranasinghe earned her M.D. from the University of Colombo Faculty of Medicine in Sri Lanka. She completed a Yale-Griffin internal medicine/preventive medicine combined residency in 2006, and received an M.P.H. in chronic diseases epidemiology from Yale.
During residency, she was instrumental in organizing a humanitarian medical mission to the areas affected by the 2004 tsunami. She travelled to East Timor to work in mobile health clinics, apart from other leadership and volunteer activities. Dr. Ranasinghe also worked with an inner-city, underserved population in Connecticut, organized a disaster preparedness conference for the Connecticut Department of Public Health and has been involved with several research projects presented at national conferences.
Her research interests include health and wellness, internal and preventive medicine, and international health. Dr. Ranasinghe serves on the Federation of State Medical Boards’ special committee on strategic positioning. She was appointed a fellow of the American College of Physicians (ACP) in 2012. She is a member of several professional organizations, including the American College of Physicians, the American Medical Association and the American College of Preventive Medicine.

Prof. Padmini Ranasinghe
Co-Director: Education Division of Hospital Medicine
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, USA

Dr. Subash Chandra Sonkar
Senior Scientist at Multidisciplinary Research Unit (MRU)
India
Speech Title: "Harnessing the Potential of Clinical Microbiology: Advancing Public Health Preparedness through Technology"
Dr. Sonkar is a Senior Scientist at Multidisciplinary Research Unit (MRU), Maulana Azad Medical College and Associated Hospitals New Delhi, India, with the additional affiliation of IoE Fellow of Delhi School of Public Health, Institute of Eminence, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India. In addition, He is also one of the Professional Members of Health Parliaments. He serving Editor in a series of Peer Reviewed indexed Journal Like; Elsevier, Nature, BMC, Frontier, PLOS etc, and a Reviewer of various peer-reviewed indexed journals like Nature Scientific Reports, BMC Infectious Diseases, Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, Frontiers in Microbiology etc. Previously he actively provided service to science as a notable contributor like Keynote Speakers, Invited Speakers, Organising Committee Members, Jury team, Scientific Experts etc. He earlier served as Technical Advisor and Consultant at the Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi (2019), Visiting Faculty and Member of Research Advisory committee at IBS University Ghaziabad and BIET Lucknow. He worked as GHES Postdoctoral fellow at Florida International University, Miami, USA and DST National Postdoctoral Fellow, INDIA.
His research interest is in clinical microbiology of infectious diseases with specialization molecular diagnostic assays developments like Lateral Flow Assay, PCR & RT PCR based diagnostics, vaccine design, protein-protein interactions, emerging infectious diseases management and genome analysis. He has been conferred with various prestigious awards notably, Fogarty Global Health Equity Scholars Fellowship Awards (GHES2018-2019), NIH, USA), Young Investigator Award, (APCCMI 2016), 16th Asia-Pacific Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infection, Melbourne Australia, National Team Leader Award, DBT ABLE- BEST20, 2010, IUSTI- IASSTD & AIDS Scholarship, 20K Cash award, (ASTICON 2014), Indian Association for the Study of Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Chandigarh, India, Attendance Grant Award, “Indigenous Parasitic Diseases in Europe” Pavia, Italy, Europeans Society for Clinical Microbiology of Infectious Diseases, Switzerland, 2015 etc and many more nationally and internationally. He has more than 12 years of research and teaching experience in Micro-Molecular Biology and public health.
He has published more than 25 research articles in the peer-reviewed high-impact international journal and authored or co-authored numerous book chapters and two patents with technology transfer. He is a member of many international scientific societies and organizations importantly, a Member of The International Union against Sexually Transmitted Infections (IUSTI), a Young Scientist member of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID), a Life Member of Indian association for the study of sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS (IASSTD & AIDS), Life Member of European Postgraduate Studies Group (ECMID-PSG}, Life Member of International Society of Infectious Diseases (ISID) and Life Member of American Society of Microbiology (ASM).
Speech Title: "Epidemiology in Action: Leveraging Technology, Promoting Equity, and Building Stronger Communities for Public Health Preparedness"
Speech Title: “Epidemiology in Action: Leveraging Technology, Promoting Equity, and Building Stronger Communities for Public Health Preparedness”
Dr. Meram Azzani is a Public Health specialist in the Faculty of Medicine, MARA University of Technology. Dr. Meram was medically trained in Yemen and served in the Ministry of Health Yemen from 2004 to 2009. The clinical experiences from her early medical career helped her realize that treating one patient at a time was not sufficient and more could be done by intervening at a population level. She improved her basic epidemiology and biostatistics knowledge by completing MPH and Ph.D. with an excellence award from the University of Malaya. She joined with the academic sector with the idea that intervening at the graduate level would improve the research skills of the medical and public health community. Dr. Meram’s research focuses on the burden, epidemiology and prevention of non-communicable diseases. She has supervised numerous Master and Ph.D candidates. She has provided many methodological and biostatistical consultations to graduate students and clinical researchers. She is a scientific member and a reviewer in a number of international conferences and peer review journals.

Dr. Meram Azzani
Public Health Specialist
MARA University of Technology
Malaysia

Prof. Dr. Saira Mehnaz
Chairman of the Department of Community Medicine
Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, India
Speech Title: "Empowering Communities for Health Equity: The Transformative Role of Community Medicine in Public Health"
Speech Title: “Empowering Communities for Health Equity: The Transformative Role of Community Medicine in Public Health”
Prof. (Dr) Saira Mehnaz is a highly accomplished professor and chairman of the Department of Community Medicine at Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, A.M.U, Aligarh (U.P.). She holds an MBBS degree along with an MD in Community Medicine and an Advance Course in Medical Education. With over 18 years of teaching experience, Dr. Mehnaz is a leading expert in her field.
Dr. Mehnaz’s academic contributions are impressive, with more than 50 publications and over 30 presentations in National and International conferences. She has also been involved in six projects, showcasing her dedication to research and community service.
Dr. Mehnaz has received several awards and recognitions, both nationally and internationally. She has been recognized with three International awards, including the WABA award, Best Oral Presentation award (ICOPH-2018) in Bangkok, Thailand, and Women deliver conference award in 2013. At the national level, she has received the Vijay Narayan Award (IAPSM-2016), Pyarelal Mohan Award (IAPSM-2011), Best Paper Award (IPHA 2012), and Ford Foundation Project Award (2014). She also received the Best Paper Publication award at IAPSM UP-UK 2020 and the Best Performance Award for World Breastfeeding Week 2017, organized by IAPSM UP & UK Chapter, where she served as the nodal person.
Dr. Mehnaz is a Country Representative of the International Association on Public Health and a former Vice-President, Secretary, and Executive member of IAPSM UP-UK Chapter, which highlights her dedication to her field and her willingness to contribute to her community.
The International Institute of
Knowledge Management,
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Sri Lanka.
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email: isanka.gamage@tiikmedu.com
Website: www.tiikm.com