At the end of a very busy summer, ASPHER Secretariat took a bit of a break from the ASPHER COVID-19 Task Force, although the individual Task Force subgroups have been keeping themselves engaged with their work, as noted in John Middleton’s Message from the President. New translations of the epi-booklet ‘How to Count Illness’ continue to be added to the webpage – eight language versions are available with more to come soon. We encourage you to use and distribute this widely in your national contexts. The COVID-19 Member School feature this month discusses ‘Boosting Public Health Resources in COVID-19 times’ at the University Vita-Salute San Raffaele. Our Associate Member School at the Institute of Public Health in Mexico has also sent us a report on ‘COVID-19 impacts on Child Malnutrition’ reminding us of the repercussions of the disease on widening inequalities.

Meanwhile, during the August pause, much exciting news arrived! The ASPHER led consortium has won our bid to update the Core Competencies on Applied Infectious Disease Epidemiology for ECDC. The project will help to kick off a new chapter in the ASPHER competency programme development, which is under the leadership of ASPHER Executive Board Member Mary Codd from University College Dublin. This timely project started officially on September 1 and will continue for 10 months. We’d also like to hint at further good news arriving from the ERASMUS+ programme that we will be able to share with members soon – once we’ve secured that contract as well.

The Secretariat joins our President to call on all Members to send representatives to join the upcoming ASPHER General Assembly on Thursday 10 September. We are thrilled to have 10 new members joining and we are looking forward to some exciting announcements and news as outlined in this newsletter including: the Andrija Stampar Medal, Good Practice Award, and Executive Board and Presidential elections. 

When you mark your calendars for the GA, we urge Members to also note several other upcoming special events we are bringing to you. These include a special webinar on the WHO-ASPHER Competency Framework for the Public Health Workforce in the European Region and a Conversation with the Author of the book: Well: What We Need to Talk about When We Talk about Health. Both webinar events are scheduled for Friday 11 September and there are many other happenings to learn about for this month in the newsletter.

In September, we will start working on the preparatory phase of the ASPHER 2025 strategy implementation in order to enable its smooth take off. Several important developments in the strategy will be considered. Among others, members can expect more news on the students and alumni agenda, as well as much more about the governance and some key portfolio context. See the strategy outline if you’ve missed it before, including elements on membership services.

The TIPH Europe Campaign will wrap up in September and we hope you have enjoyed our Newsletter features on the Campaigns in Krakow, Israel, and Maastricht. The Sheffield School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) Talk Public Health Campaign is featured this month along with an update on the release of the TIPH Maastricht Campaign video. You can expect news from the TIPH campaigns in Italy, Sofia and Kaunas to be featured in the remaining 2020 newsletters (October, November and December).

And finally we are all very excited for the approaching big public health event with next month’s World Congress on Public Health. Members will be able to read a full overview of the ASPHER related WCPH happenings in the October newsletter.

We trust you will all keep safe while we approach the autumn and winter seasons. As our cover photo shows, the path ahead during the times of COVID-19 is still unclear. Be sure to keep close to ASPHER as we all navigate to find our way – read John Middleton’s call – ASPHER it is your organisation and with your engagement we are better able to serve all our Members.

We look forward to seeing many of you on Thursday!

Best Wishes from the ASPHER Secretariat,

Robert Otok, Lore Leighton, Naomi Nathan - ASPHER Secretariat

Download the ASPHER September 2020 Newsletter here!

Please don’t forget to share your news, publications and announcements with lore.leighton@aspher.org to be included in the next regular issue of the Newsletter and on the ASPHER website activity log. We are now publishing more regular monthly newsletter reports which will better ensure timely release of your announcements to the ASPHER Membership! Finally, we always appreciate any comments and/or suggestions for improvements for us to consider for the newsletter - let us know!