NEWS

In October, Sofia will bring together the European research elite to discuss the strategic goals of public health in the region. The initiative for the large-scale event is from the Medical University of Sofia and its Faculty of Public Health "Prof. Dr. Tsekomir Vodenicharov, MD", and The patron will be President Rumen Radev himself.

Over 100 directors and deans of schools and faculties of public health will gather in Sofia on October 14-15, 2022., for the annual meeting of ASFER – the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region. This will be their first meeting in Eastern Europe since the organization's creation in 1968., at the initiative of the WHO. In addition to representatives of the association, the meeting will be attended by about 150 Bulgarian delegates from all institutions in Bulgaria working in the field of public health.

ASFER is a key independent European organization dedicated to strengthening the role of public health by improving the education and training of professionals in this sector. ASFER members include over 120 organizations and institutions from all over the world, not only in Europe.

The Vice-Rector of Medical University-Sofia, Prof. Karolina Lyubomirova, has been a member of the ASFER Executive Board since 2018 and on her initiative, the university applied to host the annual meeting.

Each year, the leaders of the member organizations of ASFER come together to exchange ideas for strategic development of training programs and building research teams. The mission of the association is to promote activities for the exchange of information and good practices to achieve higher standards in public health education.

Among the main tasks of ASFER are:

• to support the increase in the professionalism of the healthcare workforce, while giving due recognition to national and regional diversity.
• to support capacity building in the field of public health to achieve a balance between health challenges and threats facing the population of individual countries and at the European level.
• to assist faculties in achieving their goals in education and research.
• to develop models for public health education at all professional and academic levels, as well as for the interaction of education and practice with population-level health, health systems and services.
• to promote the process of sharing evidence-based models for innovation and good practices in public health.
• to build coalitions with other public health programs and organizations whose mission is to improve public health, especially in terms of introducing high standards for training and improving the quality of public health professionals in Europe.