The capital hosts the event organized by the ANIS association, with the presence of organizations such as the WHO or the World Economic Forum
The fight against misinformation in health is one of the great challenges that specialized communicators already have to face to fulfill their social mission, a problem that is increasing due to the advance of digitalization and the decrease in media consumption. traditional communication, in favor of new information channels. To combat this challenge and others, such as the impact of climate change on health or the rise of sexually transmitted infections, the XIX Congress of the National Association of Health Informants (ANIS) will be held from October 25 to 27 in Santander. ).
Titled ‘Redesigning health journalism. The informational challenges in the face of climate change, the media crisis and misinformation’, this professional event will be the framework in which the members of the newly created International Alliance to Fight Disinformation in Health meet for the first time, promoted by ANIS, and the Health Information Integrity Alliance (HIIA) led by the World Health Organization (WHO) and of which ANIS is a part, an association linked to the Federation of Associations of Journalists of Spain (FAPE) and one of the largest of the country in the sectoral press, with nearly 800 associated health communicators.
The Congress will begin on Friday, October 25, at 6:00 p.m., in a session that will include the round table ‘Amortality. Healing ourselves from death’, moderated by the professor of Journalism and principal researcher of the GICOMSOC (Research Group on Communication, Society and Culture) of the Rey Juan Carlos University, Antonio García Jiménez.
Juan Antonio Valor Yébenes, professor of Philosophy of Nature at the Complutense University of Madrid, will participate as speakers in this first table; Fernando Peláez, director of the Biotechnology program at the National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), Gisela Isabel Fernández Rivas Plata, researcher at the Bioethics and Law Observatory – Unesco Chair of Bioethics at the University of Barcelona, and Beatriz Nogal, journalist specialized in Health of Cadena SER.
Next, the results of the survey ‘Health Journalism in Public Administrations: Employment Map’ prepared by ANIS will be presented with the aim of shedding light on the employment situation in the communication sector specialized in Health in Spain. .
Already on Saturday, in the Gómez Durán assembly hall of the Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital, the official opening of the Congress will be held at 10:00 a.m. with the participation of the hospital manager, María Dolores Acón; the president of ANIS, Graziella Almendral, and the former president of the Nobel Prize Committee, Carl-Henrik Heldin.
This institutional event will be followed by the panel ‘Climate change as a health problem’, in which Felipe Colón, leader of Data for Science and Health of the Welcome Trust Foundation, will participate; Yasna Palmeiro Silva, Climate Change and Population Health Researcher at The Lancet Countdown; Rafael Vilasanjuan, director of the Global Analysis and Development Department of ISGlobal, and Héctor Tejero, head of Health and Climate Change in the Cabinet of the Minister of Health.
Subsequently, the congress will address ‘The data behind the increase in STIs’ (sexually transmitted infections), in a round table moderated by specialized journalists Emilio de Benito and Virginia Olmedo and in which the doctor specializing in Public Health will participate as speakers , Mónica Morán Arribas; the head of campaigns at the Ministry of Health, Alejandro Cerezo; the internist, member of the Spanish Society of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology (SEIMC), Santiago Fernández Castelao; the epidemiologist and health project technician from the NGO Stop, Hernán Santiago, and the psychologist and sexologist Marta Villar.
On this main day of the congress, the workshop ‘Strategies to address misinformation in health’, led by Mijail Santos, Communication, Strategy, Planning and Coordination technician of the World Health Organization, will be held in the afternoon shift. (WHO), which will be followed by the round table ‘International Alliance: Health Information Integrity Alliance’ and in which, in addition to Mijail Santos, Jesús Serrano, representative of the Communication area of the World Economic Forum, has been invited. Other international organizations such as Internews (USA and Europe) will also attend this table where the presence of Gema Revuelta, vice president of the Spanish Association of Scientific Communication (AEC2), and the specialized journalists and members of ANIS Xavi Granda and Mapi Muñoz are also scheduled. .
The scientific program of the Congress will conclude with the round table ‘ANIS turns 30. How we have changed!’ in which the evolution of health communication and the association itself will be analyzed, led by some of the winners of the ANIS Award – Iñigo Lapetra, specifically, Leonor Rodríguez, director of ‘El Médico’ (winner in 2018); José Antonio Plaza, head of Communication at the Carlos III Health Institute (2019); Miguel Ángel Pérez Lucas, director of Communication at the Toledo Paraplegic Hospital (2015); Pablo Linde, health journalist for El País (2023) and Coral Larrosa and Belén Gómez del Pino, health journalists for Telecinco and Onda Cero, respectively, and both finalists for the award in this year’s edition.