Plan's Expertise Highlighted at Premier Public Health Education Forum

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Health experts from Plan International, a leading children's development organization with offices in 66 countries around the world, will deliver 13 presentations on children's health at the upcoming American Public Health Association's (APHA) Annual Meeting & Exposition in Denver, Colorado on November 6-10, 2010.  

The American Public Health Association gathers organizations together to address current and emerging health science, policy, and practice issues in an effort to prevent disease and promote health globally. The Annual Meeting is a premier event that is expected to attract more than 13,000 doctors, nurses, administrators, researchers, epidemiologists, and other health professionals.

Plan International, USA President/CEO Tessie San Martin says what sets Plan apart in the international health community is "a long-term and steadfast commitment to working, community by community, on the world's most vexing health issues." She added that "each day—in 25,000 communities throughout 48 countries—Plan delivers improved health outcomes that translate to more and better choices and new opportunities for children, youth, and families around the world."

Presentations from Plan will highlight Plan's unique contributions to the international health field that utilize three core principals: 

• Combining technical solutions with approaches that emphasize and enhance community buy-in; 
• Youth participation and involvement in the design and implementation of solutions; 
• Commitment to rigorous monitoring and evaluation.   

Plan works with communities to provide long-term, self-sustaining solutions. Since 2004, Plan has constructed water and sanitation facilities in 88 rural primary and secondary schools in Cambodia. As a result, 696,000 primary and secondary students from 232 schools now have access to clean drinking water and sanitation facilities.

In Bangladesh, Plan is teaching parenting skills to parents of adolescents. Reaching more than 150,000 parents so far and training 3,000 more parents to become peer educators, Plan is only in year three of a five-year project. Plan hopes to reach 200,000 adolescents and more than 300,000 parents in 510 marginalized areas of Bangladesh.

In Honduras, Plan is targeting homes in six districts to replace older wood burning stoves to cleaner, more efficient stoves in order to reduce the incidence of respiratory diseases in women and their families from indirect consumption of smoke from traditional cooking. New stoves also contribute to environmental protection by reducing consumption of fuel wood for cooking.

Founded more than 70 years ago, Plan is a child-centered nonprofit with no religious or political affiliations. Plan works in 48 developing countries across Africa, Asia and the Americas, empowering millions of children, families, and communities to lift themselves out of poverty using methods that are innovative, cost-effective, and sustainable.

For more information, please visit http://www.planusa.org.

SOURCE Plan International, USA