1st AHEC South Arkansas Public Health Summit

The first historic Public Health Summit organized by the Area Health Education Center of South Arkansas (AHEC South Arkansas) took place in the Ellis Conference Center at 460 W. Oak Street in El Dorado, Arkansas, on January 23, 2008. The outcome from the summit was expected to have a significant impact on the lives of over 160,000 Arkansans in our AHEC South Arkansas service counties.

Objectives:

a . Have a broad representation of participants from businesses, education, county/city government officials, faith-based organizations, public health, ethnic minorities and grassroots community coalitions from the AHEC South Arkansas counties complete a 20-item Public Health Educational Needs instrument and return to AHEC South Arkansas for analysis.  

 b. Have about 70 selected “delegates” from AHEC South Arkansas service areas of Ashley, Bradley, Calhoun, Columbia, Dallas, Ouachita and Union to attend summit as delegates.These delegates worked in small groups during summit to discuss county-specific aggregated results from the health educational needs assessment earlier completed by the large sample of residents from their respective counties.

c. Discuss empowerment for organizing county-owned and directed services and programs to address identified needs through the year 2010.

d. Discuss formation of a council of administrators of local Public Health Departments to learn “best practices” in respective counties and form local community partnerships to oversee the implementation and evaluation of county-specific as well as overarching initiatives.

e. Provide opportunity for participants to meet and interact with community leaders and solicit support/promotion of the cost-effective health promotion and disease prevention initiatives at the state, regional, county and city levels.

For additional informational about the Public Health Summit, contact Youmasu J. Siewe, PhD, MPH, CHES, Director, Public Health Education, at 870-881-4429.