LOS ANGELES, Feb. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- The American College of Preventive Medicine (ACPM), the nation's leading society of physicians committed to health promotion and disease prevention, kicks off Preventive Medicine 2009 this week in Los Angeles from February 11-14. More than 900 physicians, nurses, medical students and other healthcare professionals will gather for cutting-edge education, scientific updates and best practices in Clinical Preventive Medicine, Public Health Practice and Prevention Policy.
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Preventive Medicine 2009 will focus on cost-effective ways to advance prevention-oriented and evidence-based healthcare practices and will feature exciting new research on the promise and benefits of prevention. Sessions will be presented by leaders in the field, including Steven Woolf, MD, MPH, Professor of Family Medicine, Epidemiology and Community Health, Virginia Commonwealth University and Dee Edington, PhD, Director, University of Michigan Health Management Research Center, and will focus on issues related to the value of preventive medicine, such as genomics and other emerging technologies to impact health behaviors, prevention and treatment of obesity and STD/HIV prevention in the adult film industry.
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Putting Prevention into Practice
Exciting new research on the promise of prevention and its benefits will be presented by leaders in the field. Featured sessions include:
"Preventive Medicine 2009 provides a unique opportunity for healthcare professionals to learn about innovative approaches to disease prevention and health promotion so that they may apply clinical and population-based prevention tools and techniques to their every day practice," said Michael Parkinson, MD, MPH, FACPM, president of ACPM. "Through state-of-the-art educational programming and the power of ACPM members as force multipliers, our goal is to disseminate prevention innovation among the healthcare community to improve public health outcomes."
Preventable illnesses, such as heart disease and diabetes, account for eight of the nine leading causes of death in the U.S(i) and contribute to 75% of all healthcare spending.(ii) That's $2.26 trillion, or $7,439 per person, every year.(iii) Based on this grim reality, the Obama administration and new Congress are placing a greater emphasis on disease prevention to better control costs associated with chronic disease. (iv)
Free Consumer Event
The meeting will conclude with a free consumer health event, Many Paths to Wellness: Health and Prevention Expo," held in partnership with the California chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). The event will feature leading experts, including Dr. Susan Love, MD, president of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation, and David Katz, MD, MPH, FACPM, director of Yale University's Prevention Research Center and national columnist for Oprah's O Magazine and medical contributor to ABC News, who will discuss prevention and wellness activities and how people can adopt simple practices to improve their overall health and prevent disease.
About ACPM
The American College of Preventive Medicine is the national professional society for physicians committed to disease prevention and health promotion. Founded in 1954, ACPM provides leadership in research, professional education, development of public policy, and enhancement of standards of preventive medicine. Specialists in preventive medicine are uniquely trained in both clinical medicine and public health. They have the skills needed to understand and reduce the risks of disease, disability and death in individuals and in population groups.
More information on ACPM is available at www.acpm.org and the full conference schedule can be found at www.preventivemedicine2009.org.
(i) Health Care Statistics, PreventDisease.com
http://www.preventdisease.com/worksite_wellness/health_stats.html
(ii) Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease
http://www.fightchronicdisease.org/issues/about.cfm
(iii) National Health Expenditure Projects 2007-2017, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 2008
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/Downloads/proj2007.pdf
(iv) Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Health Care Plan
http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/HealthCareFullPlan.pdf
-- The Prevention and Treatment of Obesity: Public Health and Individual Points of View is a study focused on interventional steps to prevent obesity, including surgical options and organizational practice and policy changes modeled on school recess to promote obesity prevention. "Preventive medicine and public health have rarely been confronted with a more medically and socially complex problem as obesity," added Warren Peters, MD, MPH, Loma Linda University, presenter of Prevention and Treatment of Obesity: Public Health and Individual Points of View. "We now know that obesity is a chronic relapsing disease brought about by a multitude of factors. I'm pleased to see that ACPM has created a forum to address this issue and identify simple interventional steps that we can bring to help curb this global epidemic."
SOURCE American College of Preventive Medicine
