Joan Benach, co-director of the JHU-UPF Public Policy Center and director of the GREDS-EMCONET research group, presented his article "Contrasts between Global Solidarity and Health Sovereignty" at the University of Antioquia (UdeA) in Colombia. This article is part of the book "Global Health," a compilation of academic seminars prepared for the International Conference of the National Faculty of Public Health, held in November 2021, in Medellín, Colombia. These seminars addressed global syndemics in the geopolitical context marked by tensions derived from the Covid-19 pandemic and uncertainties about the post-pandemic future globally. Benach's contribution reflects on the pandemic as a global-scale anthropogenic experiment and raises questions about how to confront the profound eco-social crisis it has revealed.

This work is framed within the close collaboration that has existed between Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) and UdeA since 2015, specifically between the Research Group on Health Inequalities, Ecology - Employment Conditions Network (GREDS-EMCONET) of the UPF and the National Faculty of Public Health of UdeA.

International Collaboration in Public Health: Progress and Perspectives from UdeA and UPF

During the 2023-2024 academic year, Professor Joan Benach participated in the "Climate Governance for Planetary Health" Forum of the Climate Change Adaptation Plan from Environmental Health for Antioquia -iPACCSA- in Colombia, where he presented his lecture titled "How to address the climate crisis?". In addition, professors from UdeA were invited to the 20th Annual Fall Institute in Health Policy and Management, organized in Barcelona by Johns Hopkins University and the Agència de Salut Pública de Barcelona (ASPB - Barcelona Public Health Agency), with the collaboration of the JHU-UPF Public Policy Center. Gabriel Jaime Otálvaro, coordinator of the Master's programme in Public Health at UdeA, participated in the international workshop on critical epidemiology from a Latin American perspective, while Eliana Martínez-Herrera, a professor at UdeA and visiting researcher at UPF, contributed to the course "Emerging Dimensions of Social Determinants of Health Inequities: A Transdisciplinary Integrated Approach."

This strong collaboration has facilitated the training of doctoral students at UPF, such as Camilo Noreña and Ornella Moreno Mattar, both alumni of the National Faculty of Public Health of UdeA and fellows of Vital Strategies (Bloomberg). Both have actively participated in the activities of the JHU-UPF Public Policy Center and GREDS-EMCONET, such as the PPC Research Seminars and the 2023 Conference of the International Journal of Social Determinants of Health and Health Services. In the PPC Research Seminars, Camilo Noreña presented his doctoral thesis titled "Childhood, youth, and collective health" and Ornella Moreno presented her ongoing research titled "Cost-Equity Evaluation of Public Health Interventions to Reduce Overweight and Obesity: The Case of Front-of-Package Labeling of Products in Colombia, 2021-2023."

Currently, Professor Eliana Martínez-Herrera, coordinator of the Epidemiology and Urban Health research line of the UdeA National Faculty of Public Health’s Epidemiology Group, and Professor Joan Benach are the individuals responsible for the collaboration between UdeA and UPF.

Those interested in further exploring collaboration initiatives with Latin American institutions are welcome to contact the JHU-UPF Public Policy Center via email at [email protected].