Dr. Leif Svanström M.D., Ph.D.
MD BA PhD, Sweden
Professor in Social Medicine, Chair WHO Collaborating Centre on Community Safety Promotion, Karolinska Institutet.
Title: International Safe Community movement.
Present status and prospects for future development.

Leif Svanström is now Professor at Karolinska Institutet and the Leader of the Research Group in Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion. He spent time with policy development and is described as “The Father of the Safe Community Movement”. Svanström is the Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Community Safety Promotion.

He chaired the First World Conference of Accident and Injury Prevention in Stockholm, 1989. Leif Svanström is the author of about 900 papers and many text-books in Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Safety Promotion.

Dr. Børge Ytterstad
MD PhD, Norway
Professor at the Institute for Community Medicine, University of Tromsø.
Title: A strategy for promoting increased European participation in International Safe Community work.

Børge Ytterstad M.D., Ph.D is a surgeon and is presently working as professor at Institute for Community Health at University of Tromsø, Norway.

He has worked as a surgeon in Nigeria, Lebanon, Sweden, Spain and Norway.
In 1997-98 he was an Honorary Research Fellow at Injury Prevention Research Center, University of Auckland. New Zealand.

He was one of the main contributors to the efforts leading to Harstad being accredited as a WHO Safe Community in 1994 as the first in Norway and the 11th in the world. His publications on burns in children, fall-fractures in elderly and traffic injury are included in a Cochrane review on interventions leading to reduction on injury rates. 

He has participated in a number of scientific committees for national and international conferences. Chaired the ICCH 11 (International Conference on Circumpolar Health) in Harstad, Norway in June
2000. Presently board member for Norwegian Safety Forum.
He chairs the advisory committee for the upcoming European Safe Community Conference in Reykjavik, Iceland in May 2010.

Awards:
Oslo 1997, a national award for health promotion from the Norwegian Health Department.

New Dehli 2000, at the 5th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Control he received the International Safe Community ”Traffic Safety Partnership Award” from US National Highway Safety Administration Washington DC.

Tehran, Iran 2007, at 16th World Safe Community Conference: “Best Paper Award”

Dr. Dinesh Sethi
MSc MD FFPH
Violence and Injury Prevention Rome Office, WHO Regional Office for Europe.
Title: Challenges in the prevention of injuries and violence in Europe.

Dinesh Sethi, is a Technical Officer in Violence and Injury Prevention, WHO Regional Office for Europe, Rome Centre, Italy. He read medicine at Liverpool, worked in internal medicine and then trained in public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the London Deanery. Before joining WHO he worked as a Consultant and Senior Lecturer in public health in London. In the past he has worked on conducting surveys of injuries in refugees in Uganda, evaluating the cost-effectiveness of trauma services in Malaysia, studying injury inequality in Europe and assessing the health professional response to intimate partner violence in London. His interests include studying the burden of, and assessing the response to, injuries and violence and advocating for more equity in prevention in Europe.

Dr. Bo Henricson
MD, Sweden
Senior Advisor, WHO Collaborating Centre on Community Safety Promotion, Karolinska Institutet.
Title: Practical suicide prevention.

Bo Henricson was born in Denmark in 1944. He graduated as a Medical Doctor from the University of Aarhus. He became Swedish specialist in General Medicine and has been a General Practitioner in Arjeplog, Sweden since 1975.

For the past 25 years he has been working with health promotion on both local and international level.
During the 1980 ´s he was an advisor and consultant for WHO Euro in matters concerning the Health for All issues and he has been travelling around the world giving lectures about health promotion in the local community for many years. The last 15 years he has been concentrating on injury and suicide prevention. He is actively involved in health issues in the Barent region (northern Scandinavia and Russia). He is a member of several national and international working groups and has been the project manager of the Safe Community Arjeplog.
Since 1997 he has been Senior Advisor for the WHO Collaborating Centre on Community Safety Promotion and in 2006 he became adj. Lecturer at the Karolinska Institute, Dept. of Social Medicine and furthermore coordinator for the European Certifying Centre on Safe Communities.

Dr. Mirjana Milankov
MD PhD, Serbia
National Center for Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion, Novi Sad.
Title: Safe Community Movement in South Eastern Europe.

Professor Mirjana Milankov graduated as a medical doctor from the University of Novi Sad. She completed a Masters degree at the same university. She specialized in Social Medicine with emphasis on organizing health care and later successfully obtained PhD in medical Sciences. She was promoted as a scientific research fellow and researcher and became a senior scientific fellow. The Ministry of Health of Republic Serbia nominated her as the head doctor. She became a professor at the Faculty of preschool teacher’s education in Subotica.

She worked as an MD at the Health Centre in Vrbas and the Rehabilitation Centre in Vrdnik. She also worked in the Institute for Public Health in Novi Sad as a specialist in social medicine where she was the director and at the Clinical Centre of Vojvodina as the headmistress of the Polyclinic.

As a researcher she took part in numerous scientific and research projects and became the leader and supervisor of the project `Safe Community` in Republic Serbia since 2001.

She has written a few monographs: “Traumatism with Children”, “Safe Community – Life Without injuries”, “Safe Children in the Safe Community”.
As a co-author she has worked on 12 more monographs. She has published and presented 96 professional and scientific works in Serbia and abroad.

She is a member of the Association of Medical Doctors of Vojvodina, ESCON and ISCST.

She is the founder and president of the National Centre for Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion Novi Sad, the South Eastern Europe Safe Community Network and Affiliate Safe Community Support Centre of WHO CC Community Safety Promotion.

Dr. Johan Lund
Post-doctoral Research Fellow, MSc PhD, Norway
Institute of General Practice and Community Medicine, Section for Social Medicine, University of Oslo.
Title: New national strategical plan for injury prevention in Norway – challenges for intersectorial collaboration on central and local level.

Johan Lund is trained in technology and sociology and got his PhD in community medicine from the University of Oslo. Since 1977 he has worked in injury registration and accident prevention, mainly prevention of child, elderly and home and leisure accidents. During 1993-2007 he was director of Norwegian Safety Forum, a national centre for promotion of intersectorial injury prevention in Norway. He is now post-doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oslo working on indicators for impairments and disabilities in injury registration. He has been active in international collaboration and is now president in the section of Injury prevention and Safety promotion in the European Public Health Association.

Dr. Gabriele Ellsässer
MD PhD, Germany
Public Health Institute of Brandenburg.
Title: Sustainable process of establishing the “Brandenburg safe region” (first safe region in Germany): From the very beginning to certification.

Gabriele Ellsaesser graduated as a medical doctor in 1983, in 1990 as a Doctor of Public Health and in 1996 as a Doctor of Environmental Medicine. Since 1993 she has been the director of the Brandenburg Public Health Institute in Germany and since 1996 has been scientific speaker of the German Green Cross’s Accident Prevention Forum as well as the scientific chair of the German Federal Child Safety Association’s National Working Group on Epidemiology of Injuries. She has scientific expertise in injury analysis and injury prevention among children and adolescents on a national and international level. Since 1998 she has been cooperating within 3 EU projects: 1. Developing Minimum Data Sets for injury surveillance in the European Union, 2. A surveillance based assessment of medical costs of injury in Europe, 3. European Injury Database, implementation of a hospital based injury monitoring system in five German hospitals. In 2007 she was assigned as a consultant for UNICEF Malaysia in cooperation with the Institute of Health Management Malaysia (IHM) to develop recommendations for an ‘Injury Surveillance System in Malaysia’ (site visit and report published by UNICEF Malaysia 2007). Since 2006 she has been the project leader of the German Injury Database and National Data Administrator within the European Injury Database. She is a senior researcher in the following fields of public health: Injuries and injury prevention, hospital based injury monitoring in German (selected publications), social paediatric epidemiology, health of children and young people in relation to social inequalities.

Dr. Sigurdur Gudmundsson
MD PhD, Iceland
Dean School of Academic Health Sciences, University of Iceland.
Title: The role of the Health care system in violence and injury prevention.

Graduated from the University of Iceland Medical School in 1975, postgraduate training in Iceland until 1978 and in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the University of Wisconsin CSC and Wm. S. Middleton VA Hospital, Madison, Wisconsin from 1978-1983. Was on the faculty there until 1985, then returned to Reykjavik as a consultant in internal medicine and infectious diseases. Docent and subsequently professor in internal medicine, dean of postgraduate medical education and co-chair of the Dept. of Biomedical Communication at the University Hospital until 1998. Presented PhD thesis (“The post antibiotic effect - from the test tube to the laboratory animal“) in 1993. Medical Director of Health (Surgeon General) in Iceland from 1998 to 2008. Medical Advisor for the Icelandic International Development in Malawi 2007. Dean of the School of Academic Health Sciences University of Iceland from 2008.
Member of numerous committees and boards, reviewer for several journals, opponent at PhD and MS dissertations, etc. Received Best Teacher award, Teacher of the Year award and award for Best Research Contribution. Main research interests include clinical infectious diseases and epidemiology, public health, the post antibiotic effect, animal models. Published approx. 100 original articles and book chapters, over 200 abstracts. Various newspaper articles on health administration, hospital merging, public health issues, etc.

Dr. Mauri Johansson
MD MHH, Denmark
Public Health Partner, Bording.
Title: Steps towards a general theory of health as a tool in developing Safe Communities.

Mauri Johansson studied at the Aarhus University 1961-1970: M.D. (Physician, cand.med.).
Aarhus University, Institute of social medicine 1973-75: research & lecturer. 
1984: Specialist in community & occupational health.
1984-94 Health promotion projects. Clinical, educational and organizational activities.
1994-1998 Aarhus County Council: Community intervention projects
1998-2006 Community physician
1998- : Senior Consultant, Public Health Partner
2003: Aarhus University: Master in Humanities and Health Studies (MHH)
Editorial work in medical journals, scientific articles.

Dr. Louis Hugo Francescutti 
MD, PhD, MPH, FRCPC, FACPM, Canada
Titill: The Humanity Of It All – Exposing love, life, work and stupidity.

Dr. Louis Hugo Francescutti is a native Montrealer who went west, fell in love with the open space and clear blue skies of Alberta and never left. Previously, he has worked as an emergency medical technician in the Arctic and as a professional photographer with a studio in Old Montreal.

For many Albertans, Dr. Francescutti has become synonymous with public health and safety. He received his combined MD / PhD from the University of Alberta in 1987 and, while training as a general surgery resident, became fascinated with the subject of trauma. He went on to complete further studies in injury while doing a Masters of Public Health and a preventive medicine residency at Johns Hopkins University School
of Public Health in Baltimore. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and a Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine.

In 1995 he returned to Edmonton to become an emergency and preventive medicine physician at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. In that role, he continued to witness first hand the devastating impact of preventable injuries and made it his mission to continue to promote injury prevention. Over the past two and a half decades, Dr. Francescutti spearheaded a number of public safety awareness initiatives and campaigns, including the development of an award winning multimedia injury prevention program for teens called HEROES. He has also developed an innovative emergency medical response computer program that lets emergency responders better treat and track injuries at the scene. Dr. Francescutti is also the Founder of the Coalition for Cellphone-Free Driving and former director of the Alberta Centre for Injury Control and Research.

He has chaired numerous committees and task forces that deal with public health and injury prevention. He is also a professor at the University of Alberta and a frequent national health columnist for television and radio. He has given over a thousand presentations world wide on the topic of injuries.
 
In 2005, he was selected as one of Alberta's Hundred Physicians of the Century.

In 2007, he was awarded a Champion for Children Award and a Paul Harris Fellowship from the North East Edmonton Rotary Club.

In 2009, he was chosen as President-Elect for the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

Guðrún Jóhannesdóttir
B.A. Social Science, MSc. Environmental Science from the University of Iceland
Title: The challenge of building community safety and resilience in disaster management: Coordination between national and local levels.

Guðrún Jóhannesdóttir is a Project Manager at the Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management, at the Office of The Commissioner of the Icelandic Police. She has worked in the emergency management sector in Iceland, as a consultant, in committees and research projects. In 2005- 2006 she worked for the World Health Organization as Technical Officer in the CEHAPE project in the Environment and Health Programme,  Regional Office for Europe,  Copenhagen. In 2003 -2004 she studied disaster planning and other disaster related studies at the University of Victoria, Vancouver Island, Canada.
Since 2007 she has been a member of the EU Civil Protection Committee and the EFTA Working Group on Civil Protection for Iceland.