Speakers

John Finnegan is Professor and Dean of the School of Public Health (SPH) at the University of Minnesota. He graduated from Mass Communication and was a member of the pioneering research team that developed the Minnesota Heart Health Program (MHHP) at the University of Minnesota SPH in 1980. The program was one of the most important U.S. community health promotion intervention research initiatives sponsored by the NIH in this period. Standards for many of the commonly used research design, intervention, and evaluation strategies for community trials were developed in this work. Based in this initiative, John launched a career specializing in the role of communication and mass media in leveraging change in health knowledge, behavior and public policy in the context of community campaigns to improve the public’s health. Central to his research are socio-economically driven inequities in population exposure to health information, part of the larger problem of health status inequities. He also launched a teaching program in media communication and health in the 1980’s and today, he is a member of task force to improve education of public health. He also sustains strong interest in global health, learning innovations and interprofessional education among the health professions in the context of better integration of public health and health care systems. His presentation at Prague International Health Summit 2016 focused on the prerequisites and requirements demanded from health managers and leaders in the future.