Photo By Tech. Sgt. Christopher Hubenthal | Attendees of the Asia-Pacific Regional Strategies for Health and Security Symposium...... read more read more
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JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii – Forty emerging leaders in health and security within the Asia-Pacific region gathered to discuss developing health trends and threats with security as part of the Asia-Pacific Regional Strategies for Health and Security Symposium at the Naval Environmental and Preventive Medicine Unit Jan. 12 -16.
The symposium utilized an interactive seminar framework to promote discussion and understanding of current challenges and approaches in health and security.
Participants discussed issues including future cooperation and collaboration in the Asia-Pacific, disaster and hazards preparedness, biosecurity and emerging health threats during the five-day event.
U.S. Navy Capt. David Tarantino, associate director of the Center for Disaster and Humanitarian Assistance Medicine at the Uniform Services University of Health Sciences, described the overall goal of the symposium.
“We’re really looking at civil military considerations at the nexus of health and security in the region,” Tarantino said. “What we have recognized around the world is that health and security are interlinked and that the Department of Defense, although not the lead agency for health issues, has a role to play in promoting and preventing health outbreaks, health disasters and also in promoting security and cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region.”
The symposium provided an opportunity for experts to create an open dialogue to discuss related topics.
“We want to make our health efforts and our health outreach more effective, more collaborative and more cooperative,” Tarantino said. “There’s an academic portion to this where we teach some of the practices and techniques to do that, and the coordination and networking will help achieve that. This symposium is sharing everyone’s expertise and experience, so we are able to hear a variety of perspectives and the participation has been really outstanding. The event is very interactive.”
During the symposium, experts were able to not only discuss health and security topics but also were able to put their discussions into practice during group projects such as table top and facilitated scenario exercises.
U.S. Army Col. Alan Ueoka, U.S. Pacific Command deputy command surgeon, said that the symposium is a quality platform to understand the connection between health and security.
“Health is a large component to the overall security of the Asia-Pacific region,” Ueoka said. “It’s this effort on the presidential initiatives on the global health security agenda that really provide us with the context for understanding why health and security go hand in hand. This is probably the most important connection that we can make out of a course like this.”
The Asia-Pacific Regional Strategies for Health and Security Symposium is a preliminary step for U.S. government, Department of Defense and non-governmental experts to build relationships and share experiences with international partners.
“Next year, we hope to include international participants at the Asia-Pacific Center for Strategic Studies, where we have similar conversations and include our partner nations who have many leadership roles throughout the region, find their solutions to these problems and comprehensively attack those challenges,” Ueoka said.
| Date Taken: | 01.16.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 01.21.2015 18:44 |
| Story ID: | 152420 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, HI, US |
| Web Views: | 105 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Symposium encourages open dialogue on way ahead for health, security in Asia-Pacific, by TSgt Christopher Hubenthal, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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