30.09.2025
ASPHER is thrilled to welcome you to our new website! The goal of our newly designed site is to create a member driven ASPHER online community where individual users affiliated with ASPHER member institutions (schools leadership, programme directors, faculty, students, alumni...) will be able to interact with each other, network and share their work, engage in Association's activities, and so much more – expanding together to unlock the ASPHER community’s full potential! We would like aspher.org to be a landing page each morning for members of the ASPHER community to learn about news relevant to their work. Our aim is to make the site a true focal point of their web presence within a trusted space of likeminded colleagues connected through ASPHER work and values. The direction of the website development is to create an online environment fully interoperable with members' digital identies across other professional, organisational and social media realms. Visitors are always welcome to the site, but in order to take full advantage of being part of the ASPHER community, please sign up for your individual account here. In order to sign up for an account you must be affiliated with an ASPHER member institution and your account must be verified. If you don’t find your institution on the current list and you are affiliated with an institution involved in public health education and training, then you may want to encourage your institution to become a member of the Association. Contact us at community@aspher.org to learn more about how your institution can join ASPHER. The website design is meant to be as intuitive as possible for your user experience, but in order to discover all the functionalities a manual is needed. The office is hard at work developing a user manual to be available soon. Moving archived content from the previous ASPHER website is also a work in process. We will be steadily updating the current page as well as digitizing historically important paper documents in time for 60th anniversary celebrations in 2026. This is only the beginning! We are planning to enrich the web community further over the coming months, adding hub functionalities for additional interaction and sharing to include: Public Health Training Hub bringing together available education and training offers, pool of experts and trainers, and competency-based curriculum creation toolkit. Public Health Practical Knowledge & Engagement Hub to support projects implementation including bringing together partners for bids and joint publication efforts, community outreach and a good practice repository. Public Health Career Development & Advancement Hub including system capacity and individual career planning toolkit, guidance for funding and employment opportunities. We hope you will be as excited as we are to build closer community! If you have questions, ideas or feedback, please contact us through the feedback form on the homepage.
29.09.2025
ASPHER recently participated at the European Health Forum Gastein (EHFG) where we brought Schools of Public Health to the table with a series of events on Public Health Diplomacy in partnership with the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH). Urgent global health threats must be tackled through increased collaboration, coordination, cooperation and communication across multiple stakeholders. Policy makers, practitioners and scholars have increasingly recognised the importance of health in relation to other political issues such as trade, security, equity, development, and human rights. However, in the current environment, good health and well-being has been challenged due to increased geopolitical tensions and a rise in nationalism, fuelling competitiveness rather than cooperativeness. Countries need to design and negotiate frameworks and agreements that can address global health challenges in a collective manner. The regional Schools of Public Health associations, ASPHER and ASPPH, are working toward meaningful and bold solutions to prepare a cadre of committed Public Health Diplomats, facilitating data driven dialogue, evidence-informed communications and implement health training programs in a complex environment. Schools of Public Health must be ready to take responsibility and build needed capacity! Events at EHFG included a Young Forum Gastein Skills Building Workshop, a lunch with high-level stakeholders, and a lively fishbowl discussion as part of the Main Conference: Public health diplomacy - Cooperativeness and collaboration vs disagreement and division. Watch the session recording here! Participants at EHFG debated a background policy brief authored by the organising group and an outcome statement is under draft. Both will be available very soon through a special collection on Public Health Diplomacy in a Complex World in the journal Public Health Reviews edited by Ashish Joshi (ASPPH) and Ramune Kalediene (ASPHER). If you have something to contribute to the topic consider submitting your manuscript to the call for papers! As a priority of the Presidency of Henrique Barros, ASPHER under the leadership of Ramune Kaldeine is taking the work forward to establish Public Health Diplomacy living labs in Europe while engaging other key stakeholders to build momentum. Stay tuned for the ASPHER/ASPPH/EHFG outcome statement and much more!
29.09.2025
ASPHER congratulates our 2025 Award winners! Prof. Dr. med. Reinhard Busse, MPH FFPH ASPHER Andrija Štampar Medallist 2025 Professor Reinhard Busse is the head of the Department of Health Care Management in the Faculty of Economics and Management at the Berlin University of Technology. He is also a faculty member of The Charité, Berlin's university hospital, is Associate Head of Research Policy and head of the Berlin hub of the European Health Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, is a member of several scientific advisory boards, as well as a regular consultant for the WHO, the EU Commission, the World Bank, OECD and other international organizations within Europe and beyond, in addition to national health and research institutions. His research focuses on the methods and contents of comparative health system analysis (with a particular emphasis on reforms in Germany, the social health insurance of other countries including those in Central and Eastern Europe, the role of the EU, financing and payment mechanisms, and disease management), health services research and health economics including cost-effectiveness analyses, and health technology assessment (HTA). His department has been designated as a WHO Collaborating Centre for Health Systems Research and Management. He is the director of the annual Observatory's summer school in Venice and was the coordinator of the EU-funded project "EuroDRG: Diagnosis-Related Groups in Europe: towards Efficiency and Quality" (2009-2011). He has been Editor-in-Chief of the international peer reviewed journal Health Policy since 2011. Professor Busse studied medicine in Marburg (Germany), Boston (USA), and London (UK), as well as public health in Hannover (Germany). Prof. Dr. Oliver Razum, University of Bielefeld, Germany ASPHER Research Excellence Award 2025 Professor Razum’s research is focussed primarily on social epidemiology and migration and health. With over 750 publications , a h-index of 48 and more than 11,500 citations, he has published extensively on a vast array of topics. He has been a leading expert on research in migrant health in Germany for the past 20 years, including being the lead author of the first national report on migrant health. He has researched the health of refugees, asylum seekers and international migrant workers in which he is a leading international figure. His areas of interest include screening and access barriers to health care. In recent years he has also spoken out and published extensively on the public health impacts of conflict and war. Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Medical University Gdansk ASPHER Teaching and Practice Excellence Award 2025 The Department of Public Health and Community Medicine is located at the Faculty of Health Sciences of the Medical University of Gdansk (GUMed). The Department conducts scientific and didactic activities in the field of public health and organises public health classes for the majority of faculties conducted at the University. The Department is also the initiator and creator of the public health courses (undergraduate and postgraduate studies), whose students learn about the full spectrum of topics covered by public health. Academic staff continuously improve their competences through participation in further education courses offered at the University, as well as in external courses. The Department innovates and continuously modifies teaching content and teaching methods. For several years, an internal system of teaching evaluation has been in place, as well as methods to activate students. Between 2022 and 2025, the Medical University of Gdansk implemented activities in teaching and practice of public health in the face of new challenges such as the war in Ukraine, the “new reality” and mental health. The Department also implemented a succussful NAWA project from September 2022 to July 2024, entitled “Improving public health education in response to pandemic and post-pandemic challenges”, which had the highest impact on the further activities undertaken by the Department and its recognition. The long-term effects of the cooperation are the internationalisation of the unit and lasting relations with the Partners, enabling the creation of further projects in the area of science and teaching. ASPHER Early Career Excellence Awards 2025: Rami H. Al-Rifai, United Arab Emirates Beate Jahn, Austria Jwenish Kumawat, Ireland Pier Mario Perrone, Italy Anna Tyranska-Fobke, Poland
29.09.2025
The ASPHER Secretariat is delighted to announce the outcome of the recent election process at the ASPHER Annual General Assembly (AGA) 2025 in Berlin which took place at the Charité Campus Mitte on 25 June ahead of the ASPHER 2025 Deans' & Directors' Retreat at Berlin School of Public Health. ASPHER Presidency election Prof. Mary Codd has been elected as President-elect for the 2025–2026 term. Prof. Codd will assume the office of ASPHER President for the 2026–2028 term. In addition, Prof. Nadav Davidovitch has been proposed for election as President-elect for the 2027–2028 term, to take up the office of President for the 2028-2030 term, subject to ratification of his candidature by the ASPHER Membership at the AGA 2027. We warmly congratulate Prof. Mary Codd on her election to the Presidency of ASPHER, and acknowledge Prof. Nadav Davidovitch's candidacy for election in 2027. We look forward to their continued contributions to ASPHER's mission and values. ASPHER Executive Board election Prof. Polychronis Kostoulas, University of Thessaly, Greece was elected for his second term in the ASPHER Executive Board. Prof. Oleg Lozan, School of Public Health Management, Republic of Moldova; and Prof. Judit Simon, Medical University of Vienna, Austria were elected for their first terms in the ASPHER Executive Board. We congratulate and enthusiastically welcome the new and returning members of the ASPHER Executive Board. We look forward to working productively with the Board to continue to strengthen ASPHER, its members, and the contributions of the public health education and training to improving and protecting the public's health.
24.03.2025
Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the Association.