The Second International Symposium on Circumpolar Health

Abstract

Following the successful 1967 Symposium on Circumpolar Health-Related Problems held at the University of Alaska under the joint auspices of the Arctic Institute and the University ..., plans were initiated for staging a second conference, and this was soon given strong support by the Scandinavian-North European group. Their initiative led to the organization of the Nordic Council for Arctic Medical Research, with representation from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. ... The Symposium was held from 21 to 24 June 1971 in the new, modern University of Oulu Medical School, the northernmost medical school on earth. The participants came from thirteen countries and included three representatives from the World Health Organization. The 276 registered active participants were accompanied by 79 non-participants, for a total of 355. The conference was thus nearly three times the size of the 1967 Alaska symposium of slightly above 100 participants. The most numerous national groups were from the U.S.A. (82), Finland (69), Sweden (67), Canada (44), and Denmark (38). Other countries represented were Australia, France, Iceland, Japan, Norway, U.S.S.R., the U.K., and West Germany. ... The four-day program at Oulu was followed by a post-conference session at Rovaniemi. The total program presented 95 main speakers, plus 88 "free" or contributed papers, for a grand total of 183 presentations. ... considerable attention was given to environmental problems and influences on health and morbidity in the polar regions. ... One of the major intervening developments which had produced new research and thrown new light on arctic health problems, physical and psychological, was the work done under the five-year International Biological Program (IBP). ... The range of subject matter discussed by the 96 main speakers and in the 88 contributed papers may be shown by a grouping under the following ten headings: 1. The arctic environment, including geographic, social, and economic problems which affect health, with emphasis on the effects of permafrost; 2. Community planning and development, with attention to housing, water supply, sewage disposal, pollution, and communications; 3. Human adaptability to arctic conditions, including reports on current research, particularly IBP studies, and genetic aspects of the native populations; 4. The effects of cold, including findings on cold physiology, physical capacity in cold, cold injuries, clothing, and other protective measures; 5. Infections in the Arctic, with special attention to bacterial diseases, viral diseases, and to parasites and zoonoses; 6. Odontology, including variations in dental morphologic traits, effects of diet, dental diseases, and other special dental problems among native arctic peoples; 7. Ophthalmology, discussed in several contributed papers from Scandinavia and Canada; 8. Nutrition, including reports on dietary surveys, on physiological and pathological effects of nutritional changes, as well as theoretical approaches to the evaluation of nutritional status through the use of multiple radioactive tracer techniques; 9. Public health in the Arctic, including reports of studies, experimentation, and research on relevant facets such as disease prevalence, psychological-psychiatric problems, the organization of health care, education of medical personnel, delivery of medical care under arctic conditions, and preventive health programs; 10. Lastly, consideration of medical problems in a changing arctic society, including such factors as changing settlement patterns, progress in immunization among remote populations, new aspects of mental health problems, and new strategies of medical treatment and health care. ...