Congress of the World Public Health Nutrition Association with
Abrasco (the Brazilian Association of Collective Health)
to be held in Rio de Janeiro, 27-30 April 2012

Our eighth and truly final line-up of speakers

Luiz Facchini and friend, Sharon Friel, Bjorn Ljungqvist, Cecilia Castillo,
Branca Legetic, Muhammad Ali Dhansay: our really final speaker line-up

Our very final line-up of Rio2012 speakers work in Brazil, Australia, Ethiopia, Chile, the US and South Africa. On the left above is the co-host of Rio2012, Luiz Augusto Facchini, president of Abrasco, enjoying a joke with Dilma Rousseff, president of Brazil. Other speakers here shown here are Sharon Friel, from the Australian National University; Bjorn Ljungqvist, head of UNICEF in Ethiopia; Cecilia Castillo, Chilean consumer champion; Branca Legetic of the Pan American Health Organization; and Muhammad Ali Dhansay of the Medical Research Council, South Africa.

The participant-speakers profiled

Luiz Augusto Facchini is Brazilian. He is president of Abrasco, the Brazilian national public health organisation, our partners in Rio2012. He is head of the department of social medicine and at the post-graduation programme in epidemiology at the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel) in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Currently he is the member of the board of directors at UFPel representing the Brazilian national Ministry of Education, and chief of the Department of Social Medicine. He represents Abrasco within the Brazilian National Council of Health (CNS). He also represents the Americas on the executive committee of the World Federation of Public Health Associations. He has studied in Mexico and at Harvard University. He has been the Pelotas municipal secretary of health. He has published more than 70 papers in national and international journals, as well as books and chapters of books.

Sharon Friel is British. She is professor of health equity at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Public Health at the Australian National University in Canberra. Between 2005 and 2008 she worked with Michael Marmot as the head of the scientific secretariat at University College London, for the World Health Organization's Commission on Social Determinants of Health. In 2008 she was asked by the Rockefeller Foundation to convene and chair a global research network on urban health equity, which reported in 2010. In 2010 she was awarded a fellowship to investigate the interface between health equity, social determinants (food systems) and climate change, based at ANU. Before moving to Australia, she worked for many years in the department of health promotion at the National University of Ireland, Galway. She has a special interest in complex systems and how these affect health inequities. Her research and publications are policy-focused and their topics include global health, climate change, food systems, non-communicable disease prevention, and urbanisation. She is co-founder and chair of the Global Action for Health Equity Network, an alliance concerned with research, training, policy and advocacy related to health equity.

Bjorn Ljungqvist is Swedish. He is UNICEF representative in Ethiopia, and has worked for this organisation since 1983 He began his career at UNICEF in Tanzania. He is global coordinator of the Renewed Efforts Against Child Hunger (REACH), the UN initiative to address Millennium Development Goal 10, Target 3.

Cecilia Castillo is Chilean. She has academic and professional qualifications in medicine, public health, and epidemiology. She is currently studying for a doctorate in human nutrition from the University of the Balearic Islands, Spain. She has been manager of the national complementary feeding programme at the Chilean Ministry of Health, Chile, and chief of its nutrition department. She is part-time professor of nutrition at FinisTerrae University, part-time professor of nutriton and paediatric professor at Andres Bello University, and a pediatrician at the Avansalud Clinic, Santiago, Chile. She is manager of the the Good Buy project in San Joaquín county, Santiago, Chile. She is medical advisor for the Chilean Consumers Association. She has published many articles concerning infant feeding and food programmes, and several books

Branka Legetic has worked for the Pan American Health Organization since 2000. She is leading an expert group for development and implementation of indicators for non-communicable diseases. NCDs. She is PAHO's secretariat for the population-based project for the prevention of cardiovascular disease and is responsible for the organisation and coordination of the PAHO expert group for salt reduction in the Americas.

Muhammad Ali Dhansay is South African. He is the country's Medical Research Council president. He has been director of the MRC nutritional intervention research unit from 2004 till the present. He qualified in medicine at the University of Cape Town in 1977. After his internship he served as medical officer at an ambulatory care hospital in an impoverished area of Cape Town. He trained as a specialist in paediatrics, and also has qualifications in child health. He is currently chair of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences South Africa national board, a trustee of the International Life Sciences Institute in South Africa, and a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa's consensus panel on Nutrition, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis

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