Keeneland Conference to take place from April 17-19 in Lexington

Prominent health leaders representing the public, private and nonprofit sectors will speak next month at the 2012 Keeneland Conference, sponsored by the National Coordinating Center for Public Health Services and Systems Research which is housed at the University of Kentucky College of Public Health and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The Keeneland Conference is a premier national meeting focused on advancing the science, policies and delivery of programs and services to protect and improve Americans' health.

Keynote speakers scheduled for the conference, set for April 17-19, 2012, in Lexington, Ky., include:

• Dr. Harvey Fineberg, president of the Institute of Medicine
• Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Carol Moehrle, chair of the board of directors of the Public Health Accreditation Board; district director, North Central Idaho District Health Department
• Debra Joy Perez, interim vice president for research and evaluation at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
• Richard J. Umbdenstock, president/CEO of the American Hospital Association

The Keeneland Conference brings together researchers, practitioners and policy-makers to share the latest research and insights into what types of public health funding and delivery strategies enable state and local health departments to most effectively and efficiently keep people healthy and safe.

This year's Keeneland Conference, which has been held since 2008, will focus on the translation of research into public health policy and practice.

"The conference is an invaluable opportunity to discuss how we can take what we've learned through research on making the most of public health dollars and get it into the hands of public health practitioners and policy-makers who face difficult decisions about how best to address the growing health challenges that communities are facing," said Dr. F. Douglas Scutchfield, the Peter Bosomworth Professor of Health Services Research and Policy in the UK College of Public Health and director of the National Coordinating Center.