What an extraordinary first day to kick off Preventive Medicine 2022 in Denver. Our 2022 annual meeting marked an important milestone for our organization after two years of the greatest public health challenge to beset our nation — and the world — in nearly a century. It has been an honor to see more than 400 members, guests and other leaders in preventive medicine together in person and to share ideas on top issues impacting our nation’s health!
So many exciting sessions, panels and discussion will be taking place through the remainder of the week on the science, evidence, and analyses that inform our preventive medicine practice. As a College and community, we need to prepare public health for future pandemics, reduce the burden of chronic disease, prevent injuries and improve the health and wellbeing of all populations.
Our President, Dr. M. Tonette Krousel-Wood opened the general session with an inspiring look back at what we accomplished in this last year in inspiring purpose, reinforcing presence and advancing practice in prevention.
Despite the challenges of the pandemic, the College has so much to be proud of and look forward to. We have engaged in a massive collaboration with CDC and partners across the healthcare spectrum to share the message – we are vaccine confident. We have supported physician-led practices addressing health equity in Covid-19, hypertension, HIV, and diabetes prevention. We bestowed the inaugural Dr. Daniel S. Blumenthal lecture. We engaged more members in advocating for preventive medicine than ever before. We inaugurated new fellows, honored new awardees and saw ACPM members achieve great things leading the way in public health and prevention.
We are honored this year to have Janine Austin Clayton, MD, FARVO, join the conference as the KBS lecturer. Dr. Clayton’s leadership in the field of women’s health is more relevant and important than ever, with opposition to essential women’s health services mounting in many States. Her work has helped increase the number of physicians who are actively addressing issues in women’s health.
“There’s something we are not doing right and in terms of health equity, we have work to do,” said Dr. Clayton during the annual KBS lecture. Three of five pregnancy-related deaths are preventable and nearly 50% of African American women ages 20 and older have heart disease. As Dr. Austin Clayton concluded - failure to account for sex, gender, race and more affects results and contributes to disparities, so we must study sex and gender to achieve health equity.
Our members have the privilege to do work that saves lives every day. This year’s meeting will feature candid conversations around challenging healthcare topics - from health equity and gun violence to vaccine hesitancy and chronic disease prevention.
We hope that our annual meeting leaves our members feeling empowered to take charge on the national conversations surrounding these important public health challenges affecting our communities.
To learn more visit ACPM online, here, and follow the conversation on social media using #PM2022.
Be well.