Rendez-vous 126
Wednesday, January 30 2002
Thank you Phil for accepting our rendez-vous. May I ask you to introduce yourself ?
Phil Wilbur: My name is Phil Wilbur and I am the Tobacco Issues Field Manager for the American Heart Association. I have worked in tobacco control for over 15 years and have gone to a *lot* of conferences! I was on the planning committee for the New Orleans conference and am currently on the steering committee for the San Francisco conference.
Q1. Can we go back in the past and can you tell us about the previous national conferences on tobacco or health? When did the first take place, how many people used to attend?
Phil Wilbur: STAT first held a national grassroots conference in Boston in 1989 or 1990. ASTHO started holding conferences for state health department people in Atlanta in about 1993. ASSIST first started holding training workshops in about 1992. Those three gradually grew into what is now the national conference on tobacco or health. The first of these combined conferences was held in Boston in 1995. There has been one annually since then, except for 2000 when the World Conference was held in Chicago. The early conferences had 200-300 people; the most recent national conference (Orlando, 1999) had about 1200.
Q2. How many people did register to the 2001 conference? Who are the participants? Advocates, Health Department officers, University academics? Where they come from? Aren't a few states (like California) over-represnted?
Phil Wilbur: There were almost 3000 registrants this year. Yes, California was well represented but all states sent at least someone as did several countries other than the U.S.. Participants represented health departments, advocacy groups, voluntary organizations, research institutes and many others interested in tobacco control.
Q3. How many sessions are planned? What are the main areas of interest?
Phil Wilbur: There were over 200 sessions split among five area tracks: Policy, Media, Cessation & Science, Youth, and Diversity. Plenary sessions touched on all these areas and more (including international tobacco control efforts.)
Q4. How much information shared during the conference is/will eventually be available on line?
Phil Wilbur: Unfortunately, funding did not allow the conference to archive as many of the sessions as the organizers would have liked. The web site for the conference (tobaccocontrolconference.org) had a personal planner that contained the abstracts for all of the breakout sessions; that's a pretty good record of what went on. In addition, the conference is planning to digitize some of the plenary sessions (such as the talks by David Simpson, Cheryl Healton and Stan Glantz) and make those available on-line.
Q5. What about the organization of the conference? Who does what? How is it managed? How is it funded?
Phil Wilbur: The conference is a joint venture of several agencies and organizations. The main funders this year were the CDC, the American Legacy Foundation, the National Cancer Institute, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association. There were many other contributors as well, including several corporations, although there wasn't as much corporate support as there was for the World Conference in Chicago. CDC also provides the logistical support for the conference, although decisions are made by a steering committee consisting of a broad range of representatives from throughout the U.S. tobacco control movement.
Q6. Is there anything else you would like to add?
Phil Wilbur: I had been afraid for a long time that the conference was getting too big to be useful any more. The old STAT conferences were very small but had great energy and enthusiasm to make up for it. However, the New Orleans conference proved me wrong. There were almost 3,000 people there - many of them new - but the energy level was high and it turned out to be a great conference! For information on the next conference - San Francisco, November 19-21 - check on the web site soon. By February 1st there should be a call for abstracts and a place to sign up for email updates as the conference planning progresses. Thank you in advance for your cooperation
Thank you Phil for taking the time to be with us today.
Rendez-vous is supported by a contract from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
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