The main theme of Dublin 2023 is:

Our Food, Our Health, Our Earth : A Sustainable Future for Humanity

Over the next decade, individuals will make choices that will determine the future of their advanced technological society. The COVID-19 and monkeypox pandemics, through which the world is now living, serve as graphic examples of the instability of the societal model, highlighting the need for action on One Health. In Europe, they paid a high price for their belief that they were safe from infection, that they could dismantle their public health systems and get away with it. Other countries to which COVID-19 spread from Europe suffered more and paid even higher prices.

The world has now run out of road on the climate emergency. 2021 was the warmest year on record, and 2022 and 2023 are likely to beat that record. The global climate is changing rapidly. Building a future, any kind of future, for them and their children, demands a new attention to sustainability. It’s tempting to despair, to give up. Let’s not.

This conference hopes to open up part of this discussion, with a focus on health and health care. They will look specifically at gender and health, at health care delivery generally, the use of digital tools, and the necessary staffing and skills to provide good care. In line with the overall conference theme, they will look in depth at the climate emergency, and very specifically at the human food supply. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine poses serious risks to global food security that will require a range of responses from governments and international organizations. The unfolding crisis in Ukraine will push up already-high food price inflation and have serious consequences for low-income net-food importing countries, many of which have seen an increase in malnourishment rates over the past few years in the face of pandemic disruptions. The Ukraine conflict not only exposes the evil of the current Russian government but also their failure to create a resilient sustainable global food supply. They can do better, and they have to do better.

They look forward to seeing everyone in person, in Dublin. Dublin is well known as a literary city, but their long history of public health in Ireland is less well known. These two elements of their history intersect strikingly in one man, William Wilde, society doctor, hospital founder, apprentice to Abraham Colles, husband to Jane Elgee, herself better known as ‘Speranza,’ the poet of revolution, father to Oscar Wilde, who needs no introduction, and Willy, an alcoholic and a journalist. Sir William, as he became, wrote extensively on eye surgery, Irish antiquities, Irish folklore, and on the health of the Irish population. They may yet have a chance to discover his city, in all its brightness and darkness, as well as learning something more about making and sustaining their futures.