COSTA RICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION
(ACOSAP)
Salus America 2005- 2006 Report

Federico PAREDES, M. Sc. President of ACOSAP and Coordinator of the Salus America Project San Jose, Costa Rica, July 17, 2006

Introduction

ACOSAP attended the Brighton Congress in 2004 and proposed to the colleagues of the Americas, the creation of a League of Public Health Associations for the Continent, as an operative arm of the WFPHA. The idea wasn’t to conform a “parallel” organization to the WFPHA, but a “helper” entity to develop some specific actions in this side of the World.

The recently elected President for the WFPHA, Dr. C. Ruiz Matus not only agreed with this purpose, but invited some delegates to reinforce the ACOSAP’s initiative, in the annual meeting of the Mexican Society of Public Health (SMSP) to be held in Mazatlán in November 2004.

Delegates form Canada, USA, Mexico, Costa Rica, Cuba, Haiti, Brazil and Chile were congregated in this conference, to discuss some WFPHA issues, as web as the parameters of this new organization.

Maztlán Compromises

There were three main compromises derived from the Mazatlán meeting:

• Up- to –date the list of P.H.A. in the Americas
• To establish focal points in those PHA’s.
• To follow the PAHO structure in terms of acting scenario.

The SMSP proposed too change the original acronym: LOSPLA to the Latin name Salus America, meaning: “the health of the American Continent”. This was very well accepted by the participants.

Current situation.

Although we didn’t define responsible persons to achieve the Mazatlán compromises, we partially have some of the information to get the conformation of Salus America.

ACOSAP is working in this moment toward having the web page of Salus America, in the initial step, as a link from ACOSAP’s web page: www.acosap.org

We believe that through electronic communication the goals of Salus America are going to be achieved.

The format of S.A. web page, or its content, is the following:

• Front page. General Information.
• Focal points of the PHA in the Americas.
• Data base of technicians in PH fields. “Who is who?”
• Main projects running in the Region.
• Future Events. (Upcoming events in PH).
• Legal instruments. (Decrees, Carta Magna, Laws, etc)
• Personal contributions (Letter, articles, comments)

Challenges from Rio. What is next?

The Rio Congress is going to be the perfect momentum to sign up our real compromises in this term: Do we want to develop S.A. or this was just an illusion?

If required, some funds must be determined in order to “press the ON bottom” to develop this project. Originally, the idea was to have an Executive Board of this new organization, but finally we determined that wasn’t practical at the time of very expensive (hotel accommodation, air tickets, per diem, etc)

As the foot-ball players say: “The ball is now in our side of the field”, so we have to define whether or not if this idea is feasible in our current conditions.

Suggestions are welcome to improve the developing of this network.