A Message from Dr. David Butler Jones, Chief Public Health Officer

Public Health Agency of Canada Is a Founding Member of New International Organization to Enhance Global Public Health

The International Association of National Public Health Institutes (IANPHI), a growing network of public health agencies from around the world, was formally launched in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in January, 2006.

I was pleased to attend this meeting and to help shape the constitution of the IANPHI. As the world takes on increasing public health challenges, the creation of this organization is a positive contribution to enhancing global public health.

With increasing globalization and travel, the public health issues of one country can have international ramifications. The IANPHI serves as a forum to bring representatives of the world's national public health agencies together.

One of the IANPHI's goals is to encourage participants to learn from each other's experiences. More established agencies will be able to provide smaller, younger national health agencies with the necessary scientific and technical support to build their national public health systems.

The IANPHI also incorporates the perspectives of public health experts who have served the needs of both the developed and developing world, and who are currently in the academic community or the private sector. In addition, expertise and support from IANPHI will help newer national public health agencies to build the basic public health infrastructure necessary to deliver aid provided byfrom international and philanthropic organizations.

This is another example of how the Public Health Agency of Canada works closely with international organizations, such as the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the UK Health Protection Agency to identify, prepare for and respond to global public health threats.

As a member of this organization, PHAC will encourage the IANPHI to focus on public health issues that could benefit from collective thinking and action within the international arena. These include: knowledge translation and the growth of the public health evidence base; access to the existing knowledge base; strengthening human resource capacity for public health and public health informatics.

The secretariat for IANPHI is housed in KTL, Finland's National Public Health Institute. There are 35 countries, including Nigeria, Brazil and China, with national public health agencies connected through IANPHI. More information can be found at www.ktl.fi.