Palliative care abstracts invited for Global Health Catalyst Summit at Harvard Medical School

The current focus is on cancer: the emerging field of global radiation oncology, cancer control, prevention, advocacy and palliative care.

The 2017 summit theme is: ‘The Cancer Moonshot and Global Health’. This years’ summit, which will be held from 28 – 30 April at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute focuses on partnership building, leveraging ICTs/lower cost technologies and unprecedented diaspora engagement to catalyse high impact international collaborations in cancer care, research and education that will save lives, eliminate cancer disparities and advance development.

In 2014, the first ever global resolution on palliative care, WHA 67.19, called upon WHO and Member States to improve access to palliative care as a core component of national health systems.

As part of the Lancet Commission on Global Access to Pain Control and Palliative Care, the 2015 Global Health Summit established a specific track on palliative care to bring experts, researchers and policy makers in palliative care from developing and developed countries together to discuss disparities in palliative care globally and to work to close this divide.

Palliative care is an essential component in human cancer care. It is important when people talk about chemotherapy, prevention, screening, etc – all vitally important aspects of cancer care – they also talk about palliative care for the millions of people who are dying without appropriate care.

We encourage members of palliative care teams around the world to send abstracts to share their important work, and to attend this global health summit.

For more information and to submit an abstract, visit the Harvard Global Health Catalyst Summit website.