Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
Director-General - World Health Organization
Message to Delegates
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was elected WHO Director-General for a five-year term by WHO Member States at the Seventieth World Health Assembly in May 2017. In doing so, he was the first WHO Director-General elected from among multiple candidates by the World Health Assembly, and was the first person from the WHO African Region to head the world’s leading public health agency
Dr. Joy St. John
Executive Director, Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA)
The Region’s Response to COVID-19
Dr Joy St. John is currently the Executive Director at CARPHA where she provides leadership and direction in executing the functions laid out in the Inter-Governmental Agreement. Before joining CARPHA in 2019, Dr. St. John was Assistant Director General of the World Health Organization, with direct responsibility at the World Health Organization for Climate and other Determinants of Health (CED) (first Barbadian to be Assistant Director General).
She was the former Chief Medical Officer of Barbados (first Barbadian to hold that office) for over 12 years, the Public Health Advisor to the Minister of Health and responsible for the oversight of the management of the Health Sector. From 2012-2013 Dr St. John was the first Caribbean person to Chair the Executive Board of the World Health Organization.
CARPHA has led the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic and Dr St John’s leadership has seen her have over 100 speaking engagements as she engages with multiple regional and international sectors, and the Health leaders and Heads of Government in CARICOM.
Dr. Hugh Montgomery
Professor of Intensive Care Medicine at University College London (UCL)
Matters of Survival: The Human Impact of Climate Change
Dr Hugh Montgomery is Professor at UCL, where he also directs the Centre for Human Health and Performance. He also works in the field of Artificial Intelligence as applied to Health, working for DeepMind Health, part of Alphabet/Google. Hugh is also a geneticist. He discovered the first ‘gene for human fitness’ – one which also changes the chance of surviving critical illness by five-fold. His research looks into why one person may live and one may die when they look almost identical and suffer the same disease. Montgomery is interested in whether survivors are born, or made.
He has published over 480 scientific research articles and is perhaps best known for his discovery of ‘the first gene for human fitness’. Hugh Montgomery chaired the last two Lancet Commissions on Human Health and Climate Change, and has written and lectured extensively on the subject. He was appointed to the post of Leader by London’s Sustainable Development Commission, attended many of the international ‘COP’ negotiations, and led the children’s climate education Project Genie.
He organised the Royal College of Physicians first meeting on Climate and Health, was a founder member of the UK Climate and Health Alliance, and helped create the International Alliance on the same subject. He organised the first International Meeting on Climate, Health and Security in 2009.
Hugh has patented a treatment for cancer wasting and prevention of injury in stroke; a new technology for patient hydration; a novel mask for the removal of pollutants; and a new asthma inhaler.
Dr. Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum
Head of the Climate Change and Health Unit World Health Organization
Protecting Health from Climate Change in the Caribbean: Do We Already Know Enough?
Dr Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum’s training is on the ecology of infectious disease and public health, and he has worked on climate change and health for 20 years. During that time, Diarmid has played key roles in the development of the first quantitative estimates of the overall health impacts of climate change, resolutions of the World Health Assembly, the first three WHO global conferences on health and climate, and the expansion of WHO’s climate change and health programme, which has now provided direct support to over 30 low- and middle-income countries. Diarmid is author of over 100 journal papers, reports, and book chapters on the ecology and control of infectious disease, and on the health implications of global environmental change. He is a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Extreme Events, of the health chapters of the 5th and 6thIPCC Assessment reports, and of the first health report to the UN Climate Negotiations.
Professor Denise Eldemire-Shearer
The University of the West Indies at Mona. Mona Ageing and Wellness - MB.BS, DPH, PhD
Ageing in the Caribbean Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Professor Eldemire Shearer began her public health career in 1981 at the University of West Indies with Professor Standard. She was instrumental in introducing the MPH in 1985 which she coordinated till 2010 training many of the public health persons in the region. Her interest in research began early and by 1985 was involved in looking at public health across the region. In 1986 as part of World Health Organization’s multicountry studies she began research into issues associated with ageing especially functional now healthy ageing resulting in over 80 publications. Her research since the late 90’s has included several policy initiatives in primary health care and age friendly approaches. She has worked with both Pan American Health Organization and World Health Organization in various areas of research over the years.
Professor Asha Badaloo
Nutritional Metabolism
Tropical Metabolism Research Unit, Caribbean Institute for Health Research, University of the West Indies, Jamaica
Probing in vivo Metabolism using Stable Isotope Tracer technique
Professor Asha Badaloo has worked at the Tropical Metabolism Research Unit, Caribbean Institute for Health Research for over 30 years achieving Professorship in Human Metabolism. Her area of work focusses on research involving the use of stable isotope tracer technique to explore metabolism of proteins and amino acids, and glutathione mainly in childhood malnutrition but in other physiological and pathological states. The overall objective of her research is to explore mechanisms to inform intervention. In addition to roles of diet and physical activity, Professor Badaloo more recently extended her area of research to include the use of isotopic methodology for accurate measurement of adiposity, energy expenditure and breast-milk intake in studies investigating risk factors for childhood obesity and risk for sarcopenia in the elderly.
