To ensure that its research makes a positive difference in people’s lives, the Population Council emphasizes the dissemination of the findings of its staff and the broader research community. Dissemination takes many forms: a comprehensive Web site that in a recent month served over 50,000 visitors; the publication of two internationally recognized, peer-reviewed journals, Population and Development Review and Studies in Family Planning, books, and working papers; media interviews; presentations at international meetings; and information booths at major public health, social science, and biomedical conferences. Listed below are some of the events at which Council findings were presented to government representatives, scientists, health providers, and the general public in the second half of 2003: - In June, Council researchers gave presentations at the 85th Annual Meeting of the Endocrine Society in Philadelphia, including Daniel J. Bernard’s discussion of a study, later published in Molecular Endocrinology, that examined the mechanisms through which a pituitary factor, activin, stimulates production of follicle-stimulating hormones.
- Régine Sitruk-Ware, the Council’s executive director of product research and development, led a panel on “Contraceptive Product Development and Evaluation” at the Institute of Medicine’s International Symposium on New Frontiers in Contraceptive Research in Washington, DC, in July. Symposium findings were incorporated in the publication in January 2004 of New Frontiers in Contraceptive Research: A Blueprint for Action, to which Sitruk-Ware contributed.
- In August, Council researchers delivered presentations at the 13th International Conference on AIDS & STIs in Africa, in Nairobi, Kenya. In an associated event, Council staff members ran in the first International Women’s AIDS Run to raise money for African AIDS orphans.
- In November, Population Council staff presented their research at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in San Francisco, addressing such issues as the key factors for tobacco and other substance abuse by adolescents in Bangladesh.
- Also in November, Council staff traveled to Santiago, Chile, for the XVII FIGO World Congress of Gynecology and Obstetrics, which was attended by over 8,400 physicians and health professionals from 121 countries. Council researchers presented 29 papers, and Council Distinguished Scientist Sheldon J. Segal chaired a session on male reproduction and andrology.
- In December, the Horizons program sponsored the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission [of HIV/AIDS] Symposium in Washington, DC. Council presenters were joined by researchers from USAID, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Family Health International, and UNICEF.
Some of the news outlets in which Council staff were quoted or appeared in the later part of 2003 were: The New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, and International Herald Tribune; NBC Nightly News and The Early Show (CBS News); Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, Time, Nature, Science, and New Scientist; Reuters News Service and MarketWatch.com, Inc. More information on these events and presentations can be found at www.popcouncil.org/mediacenter. (Return to issue contents)
|
