North West Public Health Conference 2010

Date of the event: 4th and 5th November 2010
Organised by: Event North and Cumbria and Lancashire Public Health Networks
Venue: Lowood Hotel, Ambleside
By: Maggie Moody, Portfolio Manager

I was at the NW Public Health Conference on 4th and 5th November in Ambleside, followed by a lovely long weekend in a log cabin near Ullswater (and then a nasty cold), which is why I've only now got round to sharing my summary of the conference highlights.

First to say is that it was a really good event in a lovely location, well attended by a mix of people from health, local authorities and the voluntary sector which made for interesting and informed discussion and perspectives.

The highlights for me were:
- the presentation by Ruth Hussey who highlighted the positive opportunities in this time of significant change,
- Andrew Lyon who gave a lively and engaging presentation explaining "3 Horizons"
- Prof Bengt Lindstrom who talked about salutogenesis, an assets approach (although I confess that I did google salutogenesis before the presentation so I some idea what to expect!)
- Oliver James who talked about the evidence from the Human Genome Project concluding "It's the environment, stupid"!
- Steve Wyler really inspired me in his workshop too, which gave examples of community owned facilities and buildings.

Also, one of the Target: Wellbeing projects, Pre School Nutrition in Knowsley, won a NW Public Health Award - excellent!

Here's a photo of us receiving the award, and you can see the rest of the photographs here.

You can see all of the presentations from the day here.