EcoHealth One conference to explore global health, environment

Nearly 300 people from around the world will gather October 6-10 at the University of Wisconsin–Madison for the program “EcoHealth One,” the first international conference of a newly expanded consortium of human and wildlife health experts, ecologists, conservation biologists, and social scientists exploring the links between ecology and our health.

“Promoting Global Health – Sustaining Natural Resources” is the theme. The meeting features an impressive list of speakers, from former National Science Foundation director Rita Colwell and Howard Frumkin, director of the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control’s National Center for Environmental Health, to Bloomberg School of Public Health professor Ellen Silbergeld and zoologist Shu-Yi Zhang, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Conference sessions will cover wildlife and zoonotic diseases such as avian influenza, SARS, and West Nile virus; land use change and disease emergence; health and global environmental change; and more.

The World Health Organization; a host of U.S. government agencies, ranging from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey; the Canadian-based International Development Research Centre; several nongovernmental organizations; and a dozen colleges, schools, institutes, and centers at UW–Madison are among EcoHealth One’s co-sponsors.

Reporters are welcome and encouraged to cover EcoHealth One. It will take place at UW Extension’s Pyle Center. For more information, please contact Claus Moberg, 443-803-4819 (cell) or 608-265-8720 (office), ccmoberg@wisc.edu.