National Conference on Health & Domestic Violence
Some 750 of the world’s leading medical, public health and family violence experts were in New Orleans this past October for the 2009 National Conference on Health and Domestic Violence to examine new research and strategies to prevent violence and help victims. The Conference was presented by the Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF).
“This conference is vitally important, because improving the health care system’s response to violence is vitally important,” said FVPF President Esta Soler. “We are working toward the day when doctors and other health care providers routinely assess patients for violence and help those who are in danger; military families routinely get the care and supports they need to avoid family violence; and medical professionals recognize early sexual activity and teen pregnancy as risk factors for coercion and abuse. The 2009 National Conference on Health and Domestic Violence helped identify ways to advance those goals to end the scourge of domestic, dating and sexual violence in this country.”
In addition to Eve Ensler, award-winning playwright, performer and activist and author of The Vagina Monologues, and Assistant Surgeon General Clara H. Cobb, speakers at the Conference included: Jacquelyn Campbell, PhD, RN, Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing; Mary Ellsberg, PhD, International Center for Research on Women; Jeremy A. Lazarus, MD, American Medical Association; Barbara Major, Citizens for Economic Equity; Elizabeth Miller, MD, PhD, UC Davis School of Medicine; Jay Silverman, PhD, Harvard School of Public Health; Tom Tarantino, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, FVPF President Esta Soler, and others.
Awards were given to: Assistant Professor of Nursing at the University of Virginia School of Nursing Kathryn Laughon, PhD, RN; Medical Director for the Family Violence Prevention Program for Kaiser Permanente Northern California Brigid McCaw, MD, MPH, MS, as well as Kaiser Permanente itself; and Executive Director of the Ohio Domestic Violence Network Nancy Neylon.
The Conference featured more than 65 workshops as well as poster presentations and plenary sessions highlighting the latest research and most innovative clinical responses to domestic violence. Fifteen pre-conference sessions and two in-depth institutes examined teen dating violence, domestic and sexual violence programs after disasters, health system reform and strengthening community partnerships in American Indian/Alaska Native communities, reproductive control, eliminating health disparities, education core competencies and more.
To view more photos of the Conference, click here.
For more information on the Conference, click here.
