Call for abstracts has ended

Notifications of acceptance were sent on Friday, January 20, 2023.

SOPHE 2023 Theme:
The New Age of Civil Rights, Advocacy & Equity

The 2023 SOPHE Annual Conference on March 21-24 in Atlanta, is an inclusive opportunity for anyone who plays a role in the health education profession. The annual conference offers various learning experiences and opportunities to connect with colleagues and friends.

Educational Tracks

Leadership, Mentoring & Training the Next Workforce

The Health Promotion profession provides opportunities for growth and professional development through mentorship, preparedness, and continuing education while focusing on best practices in pedagogical procedures and techniques. 

Abstracts are invited that demonstrate current evidence-supported best practices for cultivating the next generation of health promotion professionals and how they can advance civil rights and ways that public health education and professional development can mitigate discrimination.

Social Justice & Health Equity

A social justice approach to health education and promotion guides us to work towards creating equity to improve public health. Addressing social determinants will help us move toward achieving health equity. However, what is missing from social determinants models is an explicit recognition that discriminatory systems based on racism and other forms of prejudices have historically helped create inequities in public health.

This track calls for abstracts that present evidence of racism and other prejudices as a social determinant and approaches to reduce racism through health education and promotion practice. Abstracts can also focus on addressing social determinants and using inclusive practices as a foundation for increasing health equity and improving health outcomes for vulnerable, underserved, and/or diverse populations.  

Policy, Advocacy & Communications

This sub-theme addresses how the sciences of systems change, communications, and advocacy can have a broad impact on health outcomes. 

Topics could include marketing and technology solutions for populations and how broad evidenced-based policies and work to change policies can contribute to health at the local, state, national and global levels. Abstracts related to health communication theory and practice, risk communication, culturally tailored communication, health promotion and health literacy are invited.  We encourage abstracts that address both leading-edge research and practical application in the field.

Emerging Issues in Research Translation & Implementation

This sub-theme addresses the cutting edge of science and health and how health education can help to translate research to practice in emerging issues and help to address emerging issues effectively in real time.  The focus will be on how we “get ahead of the curve” with emerging issues.  We seek examples of how health promotion can be a critical player in assuring that new potentials and challenges are met with strong and innovative theory, strategic approaches and robust evaluation in implementation research. 

Topics could include: driving toward successful health outcomes through information science and practice-based evidence, implementation science in domestic and global settings, integration of evaluation and continuous improvement models into our work with complex problems, building on the science of forecasting, ensuring that health education is at the table when current and emerging health issues are addressed and learning from global health work.