Honorary Secretary's Reports
2003
HONORARY SECRETARY'S REPORT
|
Honorary Secretary's Reports
2003 HONORARY SECRETARY'S REPORT
for the year ending 31st August 2003
From: Rebecca Hardy
September 2003Membership
The Society now (as of 31st August) has a total active membership of around 1180 with 34 new ordinary members being elected this year. The total number of members is about 150 down on last year, due to individuals who have not paid their subscription for three years or more having been taken off the membership list. Professor David Barker, Professor Sir Iain Chalmers and Professor Peter Townsend have been put forward for Honorary Membership of the Society and would all be honoured to accept.
Annual Scientific Meeting 2002
The 46th Annual Scientific Meeting was held at the University of Liverpool from 11-13th September 2002 under the presidency of Catherine Law. On behalf of the Society I would like to thank Margaret Whitehead, Mary-Jane Platt and the rest of the local organising team for their considerable efforts in putting on a very successful and enjoyable meeting. Professor Catherine Peckham gave the thirteenth Cochrane Lecture, entitled "Science to Policy: HIV and other fetal and childhood infections". There were 305 registered delegates, 144 being members of SSM. John Lynch from Michigan and Kevin Grumbach from San Francisco gave invited lectures. The meeting and the scientific programme was of the usual high quality. Feedback from delegates was generally extremely positive.
This year's Annual Scientific Meeting
A total of 240 abstracts (40 more than the last few years, with the exception of the joint meeting with IEA in 2001) were submitted for consideration for presentation at this years scientific meeting. There will be 71 oral presentations and 43 posters at the meeting here in Edinburgh. Papers were scored by members and oral presentations and poster presentations were chosen from the highest scoring abstracts. The Committee has continued the policy of inviting overseas speakers to the conference, following the success last year. Professor Mildred Blaxter is this years Cochrane Lecturer. Following the success of the invited speakers at the conference last year, Peter Drahos from the Australian National University and Samuel Ochieng from the Consumer Information Network, Kenya will be giving lectures at this years meeting.
My thanks to Sally Wyke, Raj Bhopal, Heather Coupar and the rest of the local organising committee at Edinburgh for all their hard work.
The Annual Scientific meeting has been approved by the Royal Colleges under the CME/CPD scheme.
Other business
Sections within SSM
Following the decision taken at lat years AGM that the Committee should go ahead with proposals for the formation of sections within the Society, draft changes to the bye-laws (sent out with the June mailing) have been drawn up by the Committee to allow for the formation of such sections. We also invited those interested in forming sections to contact us. However, we have had no expressions of interest as yet.
Website
The website continues to develop – thanks to the efforts of Charles Florey. It is now possible to update contact details directly via the website.
European Federation of Epidemiological Societies
Nominations of the post for European Federation of Epidemiological Societies representative were called for at the start of 2003. One nomination was received, Robert West, who has been our representative for the last year.
Data Protection Act
The committee continues to monitor developments in this area. Putting together a working group with the initial intention of developing a “briefing note” outlining the facts for SSM members.
Meetings
A one day meeting on genetic epidemiology took place on 26th November 2002 in London and was a great success with good feedback being received from those who attended. Approximately 70 people attended the meeting. Thanks to the organisers, Yoav Ben-Shlomo and Charles Wolfe.
Future meetings
Next year's Annual Scientific Meeting will be held in Birmingham on 15th-17 th September 2004. In 2005 the meeting will be held in Glasgow.
Two SSM one day meetings have been organised for autumn this year by our Chair, Allyson Pollock. The first entitled “Developing a framework for equity in the new NHS” will take place on 3rd October and the second “Globalisation and Health Policy” on 14th November. Both will take place at Birbeck College in London.
SSM are also jointly organising with the Society for the History of Medicine a meeting to celebrate the life of Alice Stewart in March 2004. Robert West is involved with the organisation on behalf of SSM.
The Committee
The current members of your Committee for 2003 are:
Allyson Pollock (Chair)
Catherine Law (Past Chair)
Ian Harvey (Honorary Treasurer)
Rebecca Hardy (Honorary Secretary)
Shah Ebrahim
Charles Florey (Co-opted: Website)
Barbara Hanratty (Newsletter editor)
Gillian Leng
Alicia O’Cathain
Carol Orchard
Nick Payne (Co-opted: EUPHA representative)
Robert West (IEA European Federation representative)
Charles Wolfe
Sally Wyke (Co-opted: ASM)Ian Harvey and myself are the SSM representatives on the editorial board of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
During the year Klim MacPherson (Past Chair) and Yoav Ben-Shlomo, Jim Connelly and Debbie Lawlor (Ordinary Members) completed their terms as elected members of the Committee. Barbara Hanratty and Charles Wolfe will complete their terms at the end of 2003 as will the 2002 Chair, Catherine Law. Nick Payne will also be retiring as EUPHA representative. On behalf of the Society I would like to thank them all for the hard work and the valuable contribution that they have made to the success of the Society over the last few years. I will also be stepping down as Secretary at the end of the year.
Thanks
I would like to Barbara Hanratty who has done such a great job producing the newsletter this year and Angela Rowe (membership secretary) for her continued efficient management of the database. I would particularly like to thank Jill Skehan for her excellent secretarial support this year and over the 4 years that I have been Secretary. It has been a great honour to be Secretary of the Society for Social Medicine and I have enjoyed the experience very much. Finally, I thank all those who I have worked with over the 4 years.