key: cord-0732246-tht0toiu authors: nan title: The amazing numbers of the World Congress on Public Health date: 2021-04-20 journal: J Public Health Policy DOI: 10.1057/s41271-021-00279-w sha: 18da707c6b5bab373acfb1b46216315631e59bd7 doc_id: 732246 cord_uid: tht0toiu nan reputation of the World Congress of Public Health and of the NGOs at the core of this event. Public health professionals around the world are working together for the common public health good and for the wellbeing of humanity. This collaborative effort in leading scientific analysis, monitoring and evaluation, and developing evidencebased policy has offered front-line practitioners the tools needed to effectively tackle the COVID-19 emergency. The congress offered an unparalleled opportunity to amplify the messages of public health professionals, to both celebrate their achievements and offer them a platform to express their concerns, while making their voices heard in this digital global arena and beyond. Participants emphasized immunization and COVID-19 during many congress sessions, and discussions among professionals were beneficial for sharing data, plans, and programs to tackle the COVID-19 threat. The global public health community has met at a critical time for our planet-not only because of COVID-19. Global temperatures have exceeded historical records and real fears abound that we are reaching a tipping point, a critical threshold at which even a tiny perturbation can push the system into a totally new state, towards dramatic, cascading effects. Threats to food and water supplies, poverty, and inequalities provoke mass migration and conflict. Political structures, at national, regional, and global levels, struggle to respond. International agreements, on climate change, nuclear weapons, and much else, are being torn up. The Enlightenment view, that policy should be shaped by evidence, is being rejected by some leading politicians. At a time when global solidarity is required, populist politicians are exploiting divisions. The theme of the World Congress reflected our firm commitment that we, as public health professionals in the global public health community, have an obligation to respond to these new circumstances. We must make visible these threats to health. We must challenge and hold those with the power accountable to make a difference. And we must act, making real our commitment to health in all policies. We, as a public health community, have much to contribute and much to learn. The congress, originally planned to be held in Rome, Italy, turned into a digital one. Converting the in-person congress into a digital meeting was a huge task: the organizing associations along with the professional congress organizer had to completely rethink the event in a few months, introduce and manage a new digital system to allow participation of large numbers of people from all over the world, and prepare everyone to use the new system. Since the congress, we have adapted our communication approaches to take advantage of new opportunities to network and facilitate discussion among participants and with the speakers, and established a new interactive exhibition area. This congress added a novel feature: an unprecedented quantity of 'live' and 'on-demand' sessions. The process of guaranteeing quality and quantity of sessions in a user-friendly platform was challenging, but it afforded us an opportunity to learn and implement innovative ways to facilitate communication around public health. 'Going digital' was first a public health choice to protect participants and contain the spread of COVID-19. It has also presented an excellent opportunity to increase participation from low-income countries and from professionals who would not have been able to travel to Rome. This represents an important step towards equity. Moreover, going digital and providing access to recorded sessions for several weeks after the congress offered a flexible approach for reaching health professionals across many time zones and accommodating complex work schedules during the pandemic. We are delighted by the remarkable quantity of people reached by this World Congress. In all, 3750 professionals from 125 countries connected through this congress to make a difference in public health. With 310 sessions offered, 1480 poster presented, and almost 10,000 on-demand videos viewed, we reached 1.35 million people and engagement of a total of 24,958, strong indicators of this World Congress' success. The European Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education recognized the quality of the Congress by providing 32 credits. Many of us were worried or skeptical about a virtual congress with potential for technical challenges. However, resilience, the public health professional's mantra (even more so in 2020), has been the key driver of the Congress, along with high scientific quality and professionalism of the organizations involved. The Congress Statement called for investment in public health and care services, and for collaboration as citizens of this planet to deliver the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, all of which have implications for our health and wellbeing [1] [2] [3] . "There has been a cry for ethical global leadership to consider and address health inequity and to use the learning and experience from the global COVID-19 pandemic to build a just, healthier, and peaceful world." Yet the future holds some of the greatest public health challenges in mankind's history. Will COVID-19 become the forgotten pandemic of our century? Or will this pandemic be the trigger for putting health at the center of the political decision making process and for effective global coordination? We, as the public health community, work without pause to end the pandemic, mitigate its consequences, both short and long term, and to avoid a next pandemic. To achieve this aim, public health should be embedded in every political decision. Our duty is to always speak truth to power and to communities, to work at all levels to assure that policy and political decisions are made with the intention to protect and improve the health of the public [4] [5] [6] . We must fight bias and disinformation, with respect and real cooperation among sectors and regions. The 2020 Congress was a clear demonstration of the strong need and shared desire for knowledge and discussion in Public Health. We will gather again in 2023 for the next World Congress on Public Health to discuss achievements, share good practices, and join again our voices advocating for equity, health, and human rights. European PublicHealth Association (EUPHA), Italian Society of Hygiene, Preventive Medicine and Public Health (SItI), and UK faculty of public health (FPH) COVID-19: hygiene and public health to the front creating a safer, healthier, and sustainable world A global charter for the public's health-the public health system: role, functions, competencies and education requirements Update on the global charter for the public's health The global charter for the public's health Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations