The Board

The Board is responsible for:

The annual work programme and the strategic direction of the office;
The financial management of EuroHealthNet and fundraising;
Establishing membership and administration fees;
The appointment of staff;
Other tasks, which legally or statutory do not belong to the General Assembly.

The Board is elected from among all members at the General Assembly, and each Board member serves for two years before re-election. The Board meets at least once a year.

Current Board Members

David Pattison

President

Head of International Development with NHS Health Scotland

Employed by the British Red Cross Society Scottish H.Q. based in Glasgow; final post was that National Training Officer. I specialised in HIV/AIDS, Substance Use and the application of the Geneva Conventions within a Human Rights context in Scotland. A founder member of the Red Cross European and North American Task Force on AIDS linked to the Copenhagen Office of WHO from 1985 to 1988

Worked in the Scottish NHS system since 1989 initially within a local health board; responsibility for HIV and Sexual Health and subsequently as the Health Promotion Department Manager from 1997.

From August 2003 to July 2008 seconded to the Scottish Government as a Specialist Public Health Adviser within the office of the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, Lead responsibility for; Public Health Workforce developments, Sexual Health, Substance Use, Community Health Partnerships.

Since 2008 employed with NHS Health Scotland as Head of International Development; Health Scotland is the national health improvement agency for Scotland and a WHO Collaborating Centre for Health Promotion and Public Health Developments.

From 2006 have been a WHO ‘Temporary Technical Adviser’ on a number of projects.

In addition I have strong links with EuroHealthNet (Elected President October 2010) and International Union for Health Promotion and Educations (Elected V.P. for Marketing, Fundraising and Membership Development July 2010).

Personal achievements – missing the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro by 600m and being elected as a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health in July 2010.

Helene Reemann

Treasurer

Head of unit International Relations, Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA), Germany

Helene Reemann graduated in educational sciences. After several years at the University of Muenster as member of the scientific staff at the institute of educational sciences she worked in an umbrella organisation of youth welfare authorities and organisations, where she lead exchange programmes for professionals in social and youth work. She joined the Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA) in 1992 and has since been responsible for international relations of this governmental authority in the field of prevention and health promotion. Since 2007 she is member of the EuroHealthNet Board.

Bosse Pettersson

Vice Chair

Independent Public Health Consultant

EuroHealthNet board function: Former first President elect 2002-2007 representing the Swedish National Institute of Public Health. From 2007-2010 board member in personal capacity as Honorary Past President. 2010-2012 appointed vice-president in personal capacity.

Professional background: Engaged in public health since 1976 when employed at the National Board of Health and Welfare. Over the years worked for several National Commissions, as well as locally and sub-nationally. 1992 recruited to the re-established Swedish National Institute of Public Health (SNIPH) and left as Deputy Director-General in 2007, and became part time contracted as a distance senior adviser. Since 1988 a senior guest Lecturer at Karolinska institute and other Swedish universities in public health and health promotion.

Internationally engaged since the beginning of the 1980’s in work with IUHPE-Europe, WHO, Nordic collaboration and development aid. Serving in the Swedish delegation to WHO governing bodies for the Regional Committee in Europe and the World Health Assembly since the beginning of 1990’s, and has been actively engaged in all global WHO health promotion conferences from Ottawa 1986 to Nairobi 2009. Appointed as the Swedish focal point for the EU public health programme from 1995 during the preparations for the Swedish EU membership 1996 and onward to 2005.

Mojca Gabrijelcic Blenkus

Board Member

Mojca Gabrijelčič Blenkuš is a medical doctor, specialist of public health, working in her career for several years in environmental health and at the moment in health promotion - she was heading the Health promotion centre at the NIPH from 2003 to 2010. Her special interest is in nutrition, physical activity and health promotion where she has been mostly involved in numerous research projects and programs development, especially for children and adolescent. She participated in the national nutrition and physical activity policy development, using health in all policies approach. She participated in assessment of health impacts of agriculture and nutrition policies in Slovenia with the special emphasize to assess the impact of accession of Slovenia to EU and health equity. She was coordinating the preparation of the evaluation report of the Slovene nutrition policy in 2010.

Since year 2000 she is WHO national counterpart for nutrition and she was involved in the implementation of the WHO First Food and Nutrition action plan at the Slovene national level, in drafting of the WHO Obesity Charter in 2006, preparation of the WHO Steps to Health – A European Framework to promote Physical Activity for Health 2007 document. She is actively involved in the work of the WHO action networks on nutrition.

At the EU level she is a member of the EFSA Food Consumption Database Managers’ Network. She participates in the work of HLG on nutrition and physical activity and she was the national representative in the steering group for the Evaluation of the EU Platform on Nutrition, Physical activity and Obesity in 2009/10.

Since 2010 she is the member of the Eurohealthnet Board.

She is a lecturer at the Medical faculty, University of Ljubljana.

Malcolm Ward

Principal Health Promotion Specialist

Malcolm Ward works for the Public Health Wales. Following careers in the Royal Navy as a medical assistant, meteorological observer and helicopter aircrewman respectively, Malcolm trained as a registered nurse specialising in Cardiac Care. In 1995, Malcolm joined the health promotion service in Merthyr Tydfil as a generic Health Promotion Specialist gaining a postgraduate diploma in health promotion at the Univeresity of the West of England in Bristol, and subsequently a Masters degree in Public Health at the University of Wales College of Medicine.

As a specialist in the promotion of physical activity, he has advised on both policy development and programme delivery locally, nationally and internationally. He presently manages the public health networks ans is leading on a European Social Determinants and Health Inequalities project. He has recently produced guidance for public engagement in public health and an associated toolkit for practitioners on public engagement.

He has written for various publications on subjects including GP referral exercise, men's health, the role of sports science in health, nutrition and workplace healthm being awarded the 2010 Pittu Laungani award for the best paper published in the International Journal of Health Promotion and Education 2009/2010.

Antti Uutela

Department director, professor

Professor Antti Uutela is Doctor of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki. He is now director of the Department Lifestyle and Participation at the National Institute for Health and Welfare THL in Finland as well as professor of public health at the University of Tampere. The Department Lifestyle and Participation develops and evaluates methods, instruments and practices of health promotion. It also provides information of efficient methods, supports implementation and evaluates realisation, efficiency and efficacy of practices.

Professor Antti Uutela has been involved in many expert duties for the European Commission as well as evaluator of grant proposals (e.g. EU Public Health Programmes, Academy of Finland, etc.). He is a reviewer in several scientific journals and holds many editorial positions. His areas of interest in research of social psychology of health are: evaluation of health education and health promotion in community interventions, cognitive-evaluative models in health behaviour, health behaviour and population based health education research, psychosocial factors of coronary heart disease, and public health.

Birger Carl Forsberg

Head of the Unit for Health Development at the Stockholm County Council

Dr Birger Carl Forsberg, born in 1952, is a senior physician specialised in public health and also trained in economics. He is currently heading the Unit for Health Development at the Stockholm County Council. He is Associate Professor in International Health at the Karolinska Institute, the medical University in Stockholm.

Forsberg has over the years worked in various capacities in the Swedish health services, such as a public health physician with focus on planning and evaluation, as Head of the Health Economics Unit at the Swedish Institute for Health Services Development (SPRI) and since 2001, as Lead Physician in the Stockholm County Council (SCC). Since 2002 he is lecturer and researcher at the Department of Public Health Sciences at Karolinska Institutet with a focus on health systems issues and control of communicable diseases. He has had numerous articles published in international scientific journals and in various Swedish journals.

Dr Forsberg has experience from work with various international organisations in more than 25 countries. He has worked with WHO as staff member in Control of Diarrhoeal Diseases Progamme (CDD) in the 80s and later as consultant to WHO´s child health programmes in different WHO regions including the European region. In 2002 to 2009 he was World Bank consultant on the interaction between the public and private sector in health care in various contexts and countries, most often in India. From 1994 to 1998 he was CEO of the Swedish consulting company InDevelop.

Forsberg is member of the board of the Swedish Association of Social Medicine, the Swedish Health Economics Association and the Swedish Network for Health Promoting Hospitals and Health Services.

Nicoline Tamsma

Co-ordinating Adviser International Affairs at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment

Nicoline Tamsma is Co-ordinating Adviser International Affairs at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) in The Netherlands, where her main role is to advise the institute’s executive management on international policy and strategy.

A social scientist, she started her career as a health promotion specialist in Rotterdam, with a special focus on improving equitable access and responsiveness of health and social services. Following on from that, she led the city’s response as HIV Policy and Strategy Co-ordinator, was a member of the national AIDS Advisory Committee, and co-ordinated WHO’s Multi-City Action Plan on AIDS -an initiative embedded in WHO’s Healthy Cities Network.

She was then appointed as European Health Policy Co-ordinator at the Nuffield Institute for Health in Leeds, England, leading an innovative regional partnership aiming to maximize local health gain through European collaboration, as well as co-ordinating a major EU research project on health systems reform.

Back in the Netherlands, she continued to work on international affairs. On behalf of the Netherlands Institute for Care and Welfare, she facilitated national dialogue on EU and international health policy non-governmental stakeholders at the Department of Health, published on EU policy issues, and developed international teaching and training modules on that subject.

Her longstanding involvement in the European health community included a role on the Board of the European Health Management Association (EHMA) and as Chair of their EU Advisory Committee, and as a member of the European Health Forum Gastein’s Advisory Committee.

As a researcher, she made substantial contributions to EU-funded research efforts focusing on integrated care, the role of the health care sector in tackling social exclusion, and quality and equity of access in Europe. She also contributed to RIVM’s work on EU health information and currently leads the international programme of RIVM’s Centre for Healthy Living.