Ideas for finding resources for professional and scientific societies in public health

1
Ideas for finding resources for professional and
scientific societies in public health

• Arja R Aro, PhD, DSc, Ass Prof.
• KTL, Helsinki, Finland
• EMC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
• Ex-chair, Finnish Society of Social Medicine
• Member, EUPHA Governing Council Scientific
  Committee
• Chair, WFPHA fellowship committee

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Kinds of resources

• Finances
• membership fees
• sponsors, direct support
• publications, courses, conferences
• selling space for advertising
• Collaboration networking
• Grants
• Training, development, meetings, research
• Exchange of services

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Sources of income (1)

• Membership fees
• individual, societies, institutes (e.g. insurance
  company, research insitutes)
• Sponsors, direct support
• private (drug?)companies, academy, ministries,
  foreign bodies (EU,OSI)
• FIN Academy support for Journal developing
  intl collaboration EUPHA section work

• Fee also an obstacle to join
• full individual member
• reduced fee member (student, unemployed etc)
• institutional member
• member society
• Different benefits on different levels of
  membership
• Availability/acceptablility of sponsors/support

4
Sources of income (2)

• Publications, courses, conferences
• conferences best, but risky (guarantee from ?),
  Baltic conference on hot issues
• Selling space for advertisers
• if publication, site exists

• Printed publications down
• Electronic publishing up
• Conferences/seminars
• demand? examples of ISBM satellite, Ikihyvä
  training seminar
• Feasibility

5
Collaboration and networking

• INTERNATIONAL
• WFPHA (support, meetings, internships)
• EUPHA, (EPHA?)
• ASPHER
• WHO (e.g. Adherence program)
• ISBM (membership, education and training)

• REGIONAL/BALTIC
• Existing networks (e.g. communicable diseases,
  occupation health and safety)
• NATIONAL

6
Grants other funding

• Developmental grants
• OSI twinning example, EU projects on capacity
  building (e.g. GEP),
• WHO train the trainers Health
  Academy
• For meetings and networking
• EU funding, Nordic funding?, Finnish funding?
• Research grants
• E.g. for building sustainable professional and
  public health structures,
• Individual support
• Mobility and exchange grants, Erasmus etc
  exchange
• Training
• Grants of scientific and public health societies
  (WFPHA, ISBM)
• Foreign governments (Dutch for NIHES courses and
  degrees)

7
Exchange of services

• electronic mailing lists
• obs confidentiality issues
• collaboration with an institute
• society facilities and running costs at an
  institute/university, potentially
  circulating every (few) year(s)

8
Umbrella organisation

• good examples e.g. from The Netherlands
• guarantees multidisciplinarity
• no wasting of resources e.g. international work
  and memberships
• enables resources from different SOURCES
• Finnish Society of Social Medicine (SLY)
• One society with multiple sections, e.g
  epidemiologists and health psychologists are
  outside too small groups to be viable and
  visible

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SLY Corner stones of the functioning funding
(1)

• Membership fee
• incl journaloptions for EJPH, SJPH
• free participation in own meetings/membership fee
  in intl mother society meetings
• Journal
• peer review
• non-member orders rather small proportion
• pressures for (cheaper) electronic journal
• receives and needs support from Academy of
  Finland
• editor(s) recieve nominal compensation
• Seminars
• participation fee for non-members, bring
  publicity, in the context of major annual
  meetings but also separate, e.g. nutrition
  section seminars

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SLY Corner stones of the functioning funding
(2)

• - Effort to be involved at annual Finnish Medical
  Association
• conference
• - session, workshop etc
• - Voluntary work
• - only nominal compensation for two secretaries
• - book keeping purchased
• - Sections
• - contents discussions and functioning
• - interest groups and networking
• - arrange seminars
• - Internet based newsletters, maling lists, some
  meetings
• - Arranging in archives the society history
  documents
• - Active in WFPHA, EUPHA, SJPH

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General Finnish societies and associations

• Main funding sources
• RAY (Finnish Slot Machine Association)
• Center for Health Promotion (umbrella
  organisation), patient organisations for new
  ideas, developments
• Ministry of Social Affairs and Health,
  municipalities
• Donations, campaign income, testaments (patient
  orgnisations)
• European Funds for social etc

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More information

• WHO www.who.int
• EU http//europa.eu.int/comm/health/ph
• EUPHA www.eupha.org
• WFPHA www.apha.org/wfpha
• ISBM www.isbm.miami.edu
• Finnish Society of Social Medicine
  http//pro.tsv.fi/sly
• arja.aro_at_ktl.fi