Staff Reporter, Dhaka : BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University and the City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy recently co-organised a conference titled ‘Regional Symposium and Strategic Summit 2023 on Population Health Informatics’ on 1 March 2023.

The conference started with welcome remarks from Professor Sabina Faiz Rashid, Dean, BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University and Professor Ayman El-Mohandes, Dean, City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy. Dr Shah Ali Akbar Ashrafi, Chief, Health Information Unit (HIU), Management Information System (MIS), Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Health Services Division, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare also spoke at the opening session.

Professor Abul Kalam Azad, Former Director General, Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Health Services Division, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of Bangladesh shared his experience of implementing the health information system in Bangladesh. Later, Professor Ashish Joshi, Dean and Professor, School of Public Health, University of Memphis talked about the current situation of population health informatics in the region.

A Regional Hub on population health informatics in South and Southeast Asia was launched during the conference, which will be focused on research and knowledge sharing on Population Health Informatics in the region. Md. Tanvir Hasan, Associate Professor and Co-director, Centre of Excellence for Urban Equity and Health (CUEH), BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health and Jose F Florez-Arango, Assistant Professor/Academic Program Director, Biomedical Informatics, Weill Cornell Medicine shared their experience of the 1st year of implementation of the project titled ‘Regional Consortium of Population Health Informatics’.

Regional experts and academics from India, Nepal, Myanmar, Singapore, and Indonesia attended the event. Distinguished speakers discussed Population Health Informatics in the region, regional facts, and possibilities.

Participants of the Population Health Informatics Executive Certificate course offered by BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University and the City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy shared their experience and presented their experiential learning project. Dr Md Shahadat Hossain, Director, Management Information System (MIS), Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), Health Services Division, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare delivered a speech during the session and handed out awards to outstanding students of the course. The conference concluded with a cultural ceremony.