Capitalizing on the presence of international health experts who came to the Calisia World Conference on Family Health, the U.S. Embassy Warsaw hosted an all-day conference at the American Center Warsaw “Polish-American Collaborations in Public Health: Tobacco Control and Clean Air” on June 11. The conference brought together NGO representatives, scientific and medical experts, and policymakers to discuss not only the health benefits of tobacco control, but also the policy implications and instruments necessary to achieve public health results.
Presenters included:
- Sonia Angell, Deputy Commissioner at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
- Pawel Chęciński, Director of the Department of Health Policy for the City of Warsaw
- Cliff Douglas, Vice President for Tobacco Control, American Cancer Society
- Mark Parascandola, Epidemiologist with the Tobacco Control Research Branch in the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences at the National Cancer Institute, in Washington, D.C.
- Jonathan Samet, Dean of the Colorado School of Public Health
- Mateusz Zatoński, Health Promotion Foundation, Poland
- Professor Witold A. Zatoński, Director of the European Observatory of Health Inequalities
Professor Zatoński has been a leading advocate for tobacco control in Poland for decades. U.S. Embassy Warsaw was fortunate to have Dr. Parascandola as an Embassy Science Fellow last year, and it was his work with Dr. Zatoński during his Fellowship in Poland that led to this strong and ongoing cooperation between our two countries on public health topics.
