Invitation: WUN Symposium ” Communicating Good Health and Wellbeing: Promotion, Advocacy, Resilience”
28-29 May, Perth, The University of Western Australia (in conjunction with WUN AGM)
In implementing The United Nations’ sustainable development goal “Good Health and Wellbeing”, it is important for health promotion, service provision, and advocacy to address how changing communication methods (digital networks) and new social attitudes (i.e., populism) have produced an anti-expert, antimedical and anti-vaccination discourse that is gaining popularity and has substantial negative health impacts on individuals and communities. At the same time, there is growing scholarly criticism that narrow health solutions, including some pharmaceutical solutions, discourage patients and the general population from embracing an educated, embodied, whole-of life-course approach and socially-grounded understanding of health/wellbeing. Across these two poles, health communication and advocacy face ongoing difficulties in communicating well to groups affected by migration, ageing and socio-economic and welfare vulnerabilities.
This symposium brings together researchers in population health, medical humanities, health sociology, health communication and cultural studies with medical and health practitioners, as well as health policy and advocacy experts to discuss key issues around good health and wellbeing communication in an era in which anti-expert discourses as well as narrow transactional approaches to self-care are clouding important health and mental health communication. The symposium aims to (a) share current research and best practice knowledge, (b) develop new understandings through dialogue that aid the development of solutions and advocacy approaches, and (c) build new alliances to aid intervention, practice and policy advice in the health and mental health communication sector.
Call for Papers:
We invite you to submit proposals for presentations (research, policy, advocacy, best practice and related areas) on the above. We are particularly interested in topics related to:
- The growth of anti-expert, anti-vaccination, and anti-health messages, groups and discourses
- Critical understandings of transactional approaches to health and mental health
- The relationship between health promotion, wellbeing, resilience (critically understood)
- Best practices in health promotion and advocacy
- Related topics in medical humanities, health sociology, health communication, mental health advocacy, strategic communication, critical approaches to bodies, care and wellbeing.
To submit: please email a proposal to ComHealth2018@gmail.com, with the following information:
(i) title, (ii) 250-word abstract, (iii) full name and affiliation(s), (iv) email address.
Proposals due: Friday 30 March 2018
Notification: Friday 13 April 2018
Event: 28-29 May, held at UWA Crawley Campus, Perth, WA.
