Professor Fran Baum attended the Prince Mahidol Awards Conference (PMAC) on Priority Setting for Universal Health Coverage in Bangkok, Thailand last week. At the conference she was able to spend time with Chair of the Southgate Advisory Board Professor Sir Michael Marmot, who was the recipient of the 2015 Prince Mahidol Public Health Prize in recognition of his lifelong commitment to health equity.

While in Bangkok she also attended a four day meeting of the People’s Health Movement Global Steering Council meeting. At this meeting she was reappointed to the Council for a further three year term. The PHM established its priorities for 2016 which are campaigns on the following issues: a) opposition to the privatisation of public health services b) the adverse health effect of extractive industries c) achieve of global food security.

Professor Baum took the opportunity of being at the same conference as research collaborators to work on  on-going research on the nature of civil society activism and on two writing NHMRC grants with international investigators who were present at the conference.