ENGLISH

Society to Renew the Hungarian Public Health

OUR MISSION

We believe that health is the primary condition for a full and happy life, and that modern and effective public health is essential to attain this goal. Significant health losses in Hungary and their socio-spatial disparities draw attention to the fact that the solutions to public health problems have not been effective and efficient in Hungary. Therefore, the aim of our association is to develop the theory and practice of public health in Hungary with a new approach.

HISTORY

The association was founded in 2020 by a group of professionals from different fields. Founders: Éva Bíró, Péter Csizmadia, János Girán, Csilla Kaposvári, Zoltán Kiss István, Zsófia Kollányi, Edina Kőrösiné Horváth, Márton Pipicz, János Sándor, József Vitrai, Marianna Várfalvi.

OUR ACTIVITIES

Professional forum on enhancing the impact of the public health product tax

In order to increase the impact of the Health Product Tax (NETA), which has been in place in Hungary for more than a decade, it seems appropriate for Hungarian experts to review the international experiences summarized in the document and examine how they could be adapted. The Association for the Renewal of Hungarian Public Health is therefore initiating a professional forum. The participating experts will make recommendations for measures that could enhance the achievement of the original objectives of the tax, namely to reduce the consumption of foods that pose a risk to health.

Multidisciplinary Working Group for the Renewal of Hungarian Public Health

Anyone who follows the news may have heard that significant changes have been made to the domestic health system and that more are expected in the future. Changes in the field of public health can be expected, and the Hungarian Association for the Renewal of Public Health has initiated the development of a professional concept to lay the foundations for transformative decisions. Since we are convinced that public health can only prevent the deterioration of population health in cooperation with partners outside the health sector, we have enlisted the support of representatives of various fields of expertise. In addition to public health experts, the working group that developed the strategic concept also includes physicians, psychologists, sociologists, lawyers, economists and biostatisticians. The concept has been finalized through a consultation process involving a wide range of stakeholders over several months. The work, launched in February, were regularly reported to ensure transparency. The strategic concept, finalized on the basis of the comments and suggestions received, was published on the Association's website at the end of 2023 under the title "PRINCIPLES FOR IMPROVING HEALTH AND WELL-BEING” (in Hungarian).

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Health Promoting University Professional Forum

The aim of the initiative is to provide professional support to students and staff of universities to achieve the Health Promoting University qualification. The Forum provides a space to discuss challenges and opportunities for university health promotion and to share innovative practices, so that participating professionals can help each other to implement their university health promotion projects. The first online meeting of the forum will take place in June 2023. From the members of the Professional Forum, the Association has set up a 13-member Multi-University Survey Working Group, whose first task is to conduct a systematic review of the literature on the study of health and well-being in universities. A protocol for the review has been prepared, registered with the Open Science Framework (Registration DOI: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/JMU78) and submitted to the British Medical Journal Open for publication. The review is scheduled to be completed between the end of May and August, with the results submitted for publication in the second half of 2024.

Café N3.0 online discussion series

To introduce the new public health approach, N3.0, we organized an online discussion series Café N3.0 in April and June 2021. Each session was complemented by a keynote presentation and a small group exercise. Participants were recruited via Facebook. In May 2021, Zsófia Kollányi and József Vitrai gave an introductory lecture on the basics of the N3.0 approach to the staff of the National Institute for Pharmacy and Nutrition (OGYÉI) in cooperation with the OGYÉI, and these lectures were presented at the Celebration of Science in November 2021 by the Szeged Regional Committee, Medical Sciences Committee, Health Promotion Working Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Journal of Multidisciplinary Health and Wellbeing

Diverse. Independent. Multidisciplinary Health and Wellbeing is a new peer-reviewed scientific journal, freely available online without subscription. It is published by the Hungarian Association for the Renewal of Public Health.

Why are we launching this journal?

For most people, health is associated with healthcare, which is predominantly seen as a medical specialty. Yet, on the one hand, health is our everyday resource, the success of all our activities and thus our happiness depends on it, and on the other hand, it is fundamentally influenced by countless factors outside the health sector. From psychology to economics and anthropology, health is therefore the subject of study in many disciplines. The same is true of well-being, which includes health. The mission of the journal is to provide a forum for discussing health and well-being from as many different perspectives as possible.

What is the mission of the journal?

Theoretical considerations and practical experience show that improving health and well-being is a multidisciplinary task. Our aim is to contribute to an increasingly accurate and complete picture of health and well-being by presenting research on health and well-being and their social determinants from researchers across disciplines. We hope that the growth of shared knowledge across disciplines will contribute to improving the health and well-being of the Hungarian population.

What kind of papers do we publish?

In addition to publishing peer-reviewed original papers, the quarterly journal broadens the horizons of the readership with reviews of national and international articles and books. We invite contributions in Hungarian or English from Hungarian and foreign experts with different scientific backgrounds, analyzing and interpreting health and well-being from the specific perspective of the field. Relevant disciplines include public health, preventive medicine, psychology, nutrition, sports science, sociology, social work, social policy, education, economics, cultural anthropology and their intersections. The presentations even touch on divisive topics such as gender, equal opportunities, the relationship of substance use to health and well-being, which receive less attention in a discourse that cannot be detached from politics.

However, it is not only the multidisciplinary perspective and the choice of topics that are of interest to both professionals and lay people that makes the MEJ innovative. It is also formally innovative compared to other national journals: it produces podcasts, is committed to the modernization of science, to communicating important issues in a way that is accessible to the public, and interacts with its readers on social media. The journal's explicit aim is to foster a community of like-minded professionals working towards common goals, and to develop dialogue between disciplines and generations.

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