As one of the most influential international organisations in Public Health, the Asia Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health (APACPH) helps create an environment of mutually rewarding scientific research and the collaboration that promotes advances in public health through its’ annual conference. The importance of the conference is indeed perceived, since the newly emerged global healthcare challenges including COVID 19 pandemic, adapting to the New Norm, rapid growth of NCDs, the threat of antimicrobial resistance, and the ethics in delivering public health services are to be addressed in a timely and effective manner.

In the current context of travel restrictions and need to physical distancing due to COVID 19, an online conference would be the ideal format. Sri Lanka has demonstrated the capacity to host such conferences. Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, the forerunner of university education in Sri Lanka with a history of 150 years, in collaboration of Sri Lanka Medical Association, the oldest national professional association of the Asia-Pacific, look forward to hosting the APACPH annual conference as a virtual three-day conference from 6th to 8th December 2020!

History of APACPH

APACPH was established in 1984 during a meeting held in the beautiful Hawaiian island of Kauai. There were five founder members. Mahidol University, National University of Singapore, Peking Medical University, Philippines University and University of Hawaii.

During a time span of four decades, now APACPH has grown into one of the largest public health organizations in the region representing thousands of academics, leaders and practitioners from different universities.