Wednesday 25th July, 2018

Today we discuss a recent conference that we attended, the 63rd annual CARPHA Health Research Conference which was held right here is S Kitts.

We love attending health conferences. They’re a great opportunity to discover the latest advances in the field, learn something new and meet interesting people. Since moving to St Kitts about 10 months ago we haven’t had the opportunity to attend any conferences and so when we learnt that the 63^rd Annual CARPHA Health Research Conference was going to be held right here in St Kitts, we jumped at the opportunity and registered immediately and started counting down the days until conference day.  In today’s blog we’re going to share some of the highlights of the conference from our point of view, but first, you may be asking: who or what is CARPHA?

CARPHA – Who Are They?

CARPHA stands for the Caribbean Public Health Agency and they are the only regional public health agency in the Caribbean. They provide strategic direction  in analysing, defining and responding to the public health priorities set out by CARICOM in order to prevent disease, promote health and respond to threats to the public’s health and emergencies. Their programme of work falls in the following categories

• Emergency responses to disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, flooding),
• The surveillance and management of non-communicable diseases (NDCs) that have reached epidemic proportions such as obesity, cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
• The surveillance and management of communicable diseases (CDs), including HIV / AIDS; re-emerging diseases, like tuberculosis in association with HIV/AIDS; and new communicable diseases that are now endemic in the region
• The surveillance and prevention of injuries, violence and job-related illnesses.
• Contribution to global health agreements and compliance with international health regulations

CARPHA Conference

Every year CARPHA hosts their health research conference which provides Caribbean researchers, at every level, with the opportunity to showcase their work and disseminate their research findings.  This provides the perfect environment to determine how cutting-edge research can contribute to the development of effective evidence-based policies, programmes and practices to tackle the Caribbean’s health challenges.

This year’s conference was the 63^rd conference, making this event the longest running health research conference in the English-speaking Caribbean and it brought together policymakers, researchers, health professionals and public health officials from the Caribbean, Latin America, North America and Europe.

The theme for this year’s conference was ‘Sustainable Health Systems for Economic Growth, Development and Wealth.’ The aim of the conference was to provide an opportunity to raise awareness of Caribbean research that can provide the evidence and information to create stronger health systems in the region.

The conference was a three-day event, packed full of presentations, concurrent sessions, panel discussions, feature lectures, poster presentations and an exhibition, giving attendees an engaging, informative and diverse experience.

Our Conference Highlights

The conference on a whole was excellent, there was something for everyone, but for us certain presentations and pieces of work, really stood out for us. These included:

Assessing the impact of the Barbados Sugar Sweetened Beverage (SSB) Tax on Grocery Store Beverage Sales – with many countries  around the globe introducing a sugar tax it was interesting to hear about the experience in the Caribbean. This presentation summarised the findings, so far, from the introduction of a 10% tax on SSBs in Barbados in August 2015. It was promising to hear that following the tax there was an increase in water purchases, a 4.3% reduction in SSB purchases and a 5.2% increase in the purchase of non-sweetened drinks. It was interesting to note that the decline in SSB purchases was in expensive drinks and there was evidence that consumers were switching to cheaper SSBs.

Diabetes Distress and Diabetes Self-Care in Barbados – this presentation was insightful as we had never come across the term diabetes distress, which refers to the emotional impact of diabetes where patients may experience fear, frustration and guilt. It was interesting learning about this and how promoting self-care and self-management may address this issue.

Obesity and Weight Misperception Among Adults in Eastern Caribbean– this was a very well-presented and engaging talk that explored the extent to which people misunderstand their weight. Researchers found that in their study weight misperception was very common with the majority of people  under estimating their actual weight. This is a problem because it means that people who are overweight or obese don’t realise it, and if people don’t realise they have a problem with their weight they won’t take steps to address this. This leads to people remaining at risk of a number of health issues when they needn’t be. You can find out more about this study here.

Our Voices: Women’s Perspectives on Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening and Treatment in the English-speaking Windward Islands – this presentation really struck a chord with us as we conducted a similar piece of work exploring black British women’s beliefs about breast cancer and their help seeking behaviour. It was interesting to hear that their findings were very similar to what we found around fear, fatalism and stigma

Finally other highlights for us were, being new to the Caribbean, it was just wonderful meeting people, exploring the important health issues in the Caribbean (e.g. NCDs and mosquito borne diseases) and learning about interesting projects like ECHORN, the new Caribbean Cancer Registry Hub and The Seth Fund, as well as innovative methods of care like that being delivered by the Caribbean Cancer Centre Network – a partnered care hub and spoke model.

In Conclusion…

This was three days well-spent and a great introduction into the research being conducted in the Caribbean. We highly recommend this conference to anyone in the Public Health field and we look forward to next year’s conference. Every year the conference is hosted on a different Caribbean island, and we’re also looking forward to the announcement of which of the beautiful islands will host the conference next year.

More Information

To find out more about this year’s conference you can visit the conference website here and you can learn more about CARPHA here

We’re inviting women in St Kitts who have been affected by fibroids to get involved in our new survey which aims to understand their experience to determine if there is a need to provide information and support.

Fibroids are common with an estimated 50-70% of women being affected and 30% of women with fibroids will have symptoms that affect their quality of life. Despite fibroids being common, from the work that we have conducted in the UK, we know that this condition receives very little attention, we want to change this so that women who need help have the support that they need.

Now that we are based in St Kitts we are keen to reach out to women who have been affected by fibroids and speak to them about their experience to determine whether help is needed.

If you live in St Kitts and have had, or currently have fibroids, we’d love to hear from you. We’d be very grateful if you would complete our survey which should take 15 to 20 minutes. You can complete the survey over the phone, meet us in person  or we can email you a copy of the survey to complete at your convenience. Your identity will be protected with your answers remaining anonymous in our final report.

For more information and to take part in this survey, please email info@lakehealthandwellbeing.com or call 668 1518.

Today is World Cancer Day, a day that gives the entire world the opportunity to come together to show solidarity on an issue that pretty much touches everybody – whether that be directly or indirectly through a family member, friend or colleague who has been diagnosed. The day aims to be a positive day with the focus being on empowerment, celebrating the lives of those who have been diagnosed and highlighting that everyone has a part to play in fighting cancer.

The theme for today is “We can. I can.” and is part of a three-year campaign exploring how everyone can contribute to reducing the global burden of cancer.  Organisers of World Cancer Day, the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), have developed a set of key messages that show exactly how everyone, as a collective or as  an individual, can play a role in reducing the impact of cancer. These messages are:

We Can:

• Inspire action, take action
• Prevent cancer
• Create healthy schools
• Create healthy workplaces
• Create healthy cities
• Support others to return to work
• Challenge perceptions
• Improve access to cancer care
• Shape policy
• Build a quality workforce
• Make the case for investing in cancer control
• Join forces to make a difference

I Can:

• Make healthy choices
• Understand that early detection saves lives
• Ask for support
• Return to work
• Take control of my cancer journey
• Love and be loved
• Make my voice heard

The aim of these messages is to reduce the millions of preventable cancer deaths that sadly take place throughout the world each year by giving everyone clear information and pushing governments to make cancer a priority.

World Cancer Day in St Kitts.

As you may know, we are now based in St Kitts, and for World Cancer Day we are delighted to have partnered with the Health Promotion Team at the Ministry of Health to take the key messages of World Cancer Day out in the community.

We started with a social media campaign using the wonderful resources developed by the UICC and of course the #WeCanICan theme but added #SKNCan (i.e. St Kitts and Nevis Can) to raise awareness of what residents of St Kitts and Nevis can do to reduce their cancer risk.

As part of our social media activity we took the messages (physically, on selfie cards!) to the streets of Basseterre and asked members of the public, businesses and government departments what messages resonated with them and did they feel they might consider taking forward to do their part in beating cancer. We then took pictures of people holding the selfie cards with the message that best represented what people thought would be most effective and these were used to raise awareness last week, in the run-up to World Cancer Day.

This was a great way to raise awareness in the community, it was fun and a bit light-hearted, but still got important messages across to the public whilst creating some teachable moments as people asked questions about what they could do specifically to prevent cancer.

We’re also in the process of organising a cancer awareness lunch to be held on 11^th February where we’ll be celebrating survivors, providing information on what the public can do to reduce their risk of developing cancer and promoting early detection through awareness of signs and symptoms and seeking help promptly.

You Can Get Involved

There is still time to get involved in this campaign.

You can visit the World Cancer Day’s website, download a selfie card, take a picture and post it on social media to show what you can do to help in the fight against cancer. Don’t forget to include the hashtags #WorldCancerDay, #WCD2018 and #WeCanICan. If you’re in St Kitts and Nevis, then go ahead and add #SKNCan.

For all the St Kitts residents out there, you can attend our cancer awareness lunch next Sunday. Stay tuned to our events page for all the details!