return to page

Call for Abstracts

You are invited to submit an abstract for the upcoming 60th Anniversary Conference of the Ontario Public Health Association: Building for the Future.

I have read the information below and am ready to Submit my Abstract.

Conference Goals

1. To examine current organizational challenges and workforce practices in a changing public health system.
2. To increase knowledge of innovative public health initiatives designed to increase the capacity of the public health workforce ie. mentorship, orientation, professional development models, leadership development, succession planning.
3. To share new evidence and increase awareness of methods to support the application of evidence-informed decisions for public health practice.
4. To broaden existing intersectoral and interdisciplinary opportunities for collaboration.

Conference Sub-Themes

In recognition of the many partnerships involved in the delivery of public health, themes for this years conference are:

• Health Equity: This stream focuses on how a health equity lens is being incorporated into organizational practices, service delivery, program evaluations and research.
• Public Health Workforce: This stream focuses on strategies, approaches, tools, techniques, core competencies, and lessons learned that enhance the workforce including leadership and skill development for program staff and managers.
• Collaboration: There are two approaches of interest in this stream. First, interdisciplinary collaboration within public health units how teams are being formed and how they are functioning, what lessons are being learned as a result of interdisciplinary collaboration. Second, what external partnerships are proving useful to public health units. How are these being operationalized and sustained, and what lessons are being learned?
• Innovation in Public Health Practice: This stream focuses on new and emerging practices that make a difference to client, practitioner or organizational well-being.
• Knowledge Exchange (KE): This stream profiles practitioners, decision makers, policy makers and researchers working closely together to address questions that are important to the health of the population. KE recognizes the expertise of all partners. Such linkages result in mutual learning and enhanced practice based on the best available evidence.

There will be panel, workshop, oral, roundtable sharing sessions and poster presentations scheduled over the three days for participants to contribute and learn. It is suggested that applicants consider Need, Impact, Capacity, Collaboration and Partnership and the Ontario Public Health Standards in the submissions.

Submission Deadline

All abstracts should address the conference themes and must be submitted electronically by end of day May 11, 2009. Abstracts will be reviewed by a Committee of Peers using standard criteria. Applicants are encouraged to visit the conference website for details on how to write a conference abstract.

Presentation Formats

Panel Discussion

Panels will be 60-80 minutes in length. Twenty minutes should be left for a dialogue with the audience. Panels should ideally consist of three to four participants. Goal of a panel is to provide various points of view on a selected issue or in-depth discussion on a conference theme.

Workshops

Workshops will be 60 80 minutes in length including time for discussion and questions, and will allow a presenter or team of presenters to provide skill development, professional development, or a more in-depth presentation on a relevant public health topic. The format must be interactive and allow a significant amount of audience participation.

Oral Presentations

A concurrent session will consist of no more than four different concurrent presentations each being 20 minutes maximum, and will be a total of 60 - 80 minutes in length. It is recommended that concurrent presentations include a maximum of two presenters, though additional team members may be available to respond to questions during the discussion period. Presentations should be no more than 15 minutes in length to allow for questions or comments from the audience. Time limits will be enforced to allow for audience participation.

Round-Table Sharing Sessions “Innovation in Practice”

New to the conference this year will be scheduled round table sharing sessions focused on practical applications, processes, networking and collaboration, etc. Conference participants will move among themed tables in the large conference room to learn about innovative programs and projects public health partners are carrying out in the field. The total round table session will be 90 minutes in length and participants will stay at each table for 25 minutes with 5 minutes between sessions. Table leaders will be selected to introduce their highly innovative project with the goal of presenting the project for approximately 15 minutes (to a total of three different groups) and facilitating a lively exchange of ideas and information among table participants for 10 minutes.

Posters

A new and innovative poster presentation format has been developed for this year's conference. Accepted posters focused on a research or evaluation project will be grouped, and an author will be asked to present a 5 minute summary of their poster in one of the concurrent session rooms. Discussion time will follow. Total Poster session time will be 90 minutes and participants will rotate among the rooms. Presenters will be asked to present their poster to more than one audience. A powerpoint or pdf version of their poster will be displayed during the presentation, and may be posted on the conference website after the conference. A hard copy display is optional. All presentations will occur on Tuesday November 3rd.

Student Submission

The PHRED Student Award, presented annually at the OPHA Conference, was created to recognize the work of graduate or undergraduate students in applied public health research and evaluation. The winner will be awarded $1,000 which will be presented during the OPHA Conference awards lunch. The winning paper will be presented during one of the concurrent sessions at the conference. For more details, please click on the Studentship Award link.

Please note: We will adhere to strict timing of all presentations and workshops.

Audiovisual Requirements

Each presentation room will have a laptop and data projector available. AV staff will be present to assist you with the equipment. Any equipment not provided by the conference organizing committee will be the responsibility of the presenter.

Handouts

Since the 2009 planning committees will be reducing the amount of paper produced for the conference, we request that presenters bring an electronic version of their presentation or poster, to be given to the session moderator. After the conference it will be made available on the conference website. If presenters want to bring hard copies, presenters will be notified of the number of registrants in the session, and are expected to bring the required number of handouts.

Conference Registration Requirement

All presenters are required to pay conference registration fees.

Submitting an Abstract

I have read the above requirements and am ready to create my account/submit my abstract. (Note: You can also use the link below to Edit your existing abstract: you must have your account username and password to log in.)

Proceed to online abstract submission process