At the upcoming World Innovation Summit (WISH) for Health, the public health sector is set to highlight the comprehensive medical services and activities that will be delivered at the upcoming FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), Hamad Medical Corp (HMC) and Primary Health Care Corp (PHCC) will showcase the wide range of healthcare services they will deliver throughout the tournament at a joint booth at the WISH conference, taking place from October 4-6 in Doha, Qatar.
The booth will also provide a platform to promote the Sport for Health partnership between MoPH and the World Health Organisation (WHO) launched in October 2021. The partnership aims to make the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 a beacon for promoting physical and mental health, and a model for ensuring that future mega sporting events are healthy and safe. The "Sports for Health" partnership is based on the basic pillars of health promotion, health security and health communication, as health promotion activities focus on four main themes: physical activity, nutrition, mental health, and tobacco control.
The pavilion of health authorities in Qatar during the conference — which will also be available online as a virtual pavilion for remote participants — will highlight the remarkable transformation of the public health system in Qatar over the past 10 years, a journey of expansion and quality improvement that has made the health system in a strong position to support Qatar's successful hosting of the World Cup. Under the auspices of the WISH conference, the World Health Organization, the Ministry of Public Health and Generation Amazing will host a conference on Sports for Health, which includes the fourth scientific meeting of the "Football is Medicine" initiative in Doha, from Oct 4-6. The conference aims to promote global communication and the translation of science into policy and practice using football and sport for health, while international and local experts, researchers, practitioners and policymakers will review existing evidence on the effectiveness and impact of sport on health programs, and identify future pathways for more effective implementation.
Other key sessions and activities, organised by the MoPH and the WHO during the WISH conference, include the launch of a virtual health worker, Florence, on Oct 5, who works round the clock and speaks in multiple languages to share a wide range of health tips for people interacting with her, a panel discussion entitled "A global call to work on protecting mental health of workers in the field of health and healthcare", and another panel entitled "Covid-19 — The Qatar Experience", which focuses on the use of evidence-based strategies to respond to the pandemic, while identifying key challenges and solutions.
The activities of the MoPH and the WHO on October 6 will also include a panel discussion on behavioural insights to promote the consumption of healthy food and beverages in mega sporting events, the ability of healthy choices to overcome the marketing of calorie-rich and nutrient-poor products, so is the role that the right "healthy foods" play in addressing the divide between health promotion policy, marketing and consumption in mega sporting events.
An episode entitled "Sport tirelessly: A Framework for Enhancing Physical Activities Through Mega-Sports Events", a panel discussion on utilising digital communications to promote health and tackle misinformation, as well as another session on event-based monitoring of mega-sports events and the health legacy the public.
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