Aim: The purpose of the present study is to examine the prevalence of active commuting and factors associated with participation in active commuting in the municipality of Karlskrona, Sweden. Active commuting is defined here as walking or cycling to and from school/work for at least 15 min one-way. Method: A cross-sectional study was carried out, which included baseline data from parents-to-be. Pregnant females and their partners were invited to participate in the study when they contacted either of the municipality’s two antenatal clinics. Data collection ran from March 2008 to February 2009. When completing the questionnaire, the participants were asked to reflect on their situation one month before the female became pregnant. The final sample consisted of 432 participants (response rate 51.9% for females and 85.0% for males). Results: The main mode of commuting was motor vehicle (63.0%), with active commuters forming a minority (8.3%). The main facilitating factor for active commuting was living in an urban as opposed to a rural area. Regular participation in outdoor recreational physical activity was significantly positively associated with active commuting. Being Swedish and being surrounded by a green space environment were significantly negatively associated with active commuting. Conclusions: This study found that the number of people who are active commuters is modest and other modes of transportation are preferred. Several facilitating and impeding factors associated with active commuting were also found, indicating the importance of applying a broad health-promoting approach to encouraging active commuting.

After months of inaction and neglect from the international community, the Ebola epidemic in west Africa has now spiralled utterly out of control. Today, the virus is a threat not only to the countries where the outbreak has overwhelmed the capacity of national health systems, but also to the entire world. We urge our governments to mobilise all possible resources to assist west Africa in controlling this horrific epidemic. Based on our expertise in public health and emergency response, this open letter describes believes and measures particularly effective to take into actions.

Plenary: After key note presentation by Elke Jakubowski, the plenary session continued as panel discussion dedicated to innovation and good-practice in public health education based on interface between public health operations, competences and performance.

Background: In order to increase the current levels of physical activity new strategies have been suggested where it is incorporated into daily routines, such as commuting to and from school/work. Active commuting i.e. cycling or walking to and from school/work is an excellent strategy to increase the overall activity levels. Even though the health benefits of active commuting are well documented, non-active modes of transportation (i.e. cars, bus, train) remain the main mode of transportation. The purpose of the present study is to examine the prevalence and what factors are influencing participation in active commuting in the municipality of Karlskrona, Sweden. Method: A cross-sectional study, including base-line data from parents-to- be was carried out, including 432 participants. Questionnaires were filled in and data collection was conducted during a year in 2008 and 2009. The results were calculated using multivariate logistic regression with odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI). Results: The main mode of commuting was motorised vehicle (63.0%), whilst active commuters were a minority (8.3%). The regression model demonstrated a negative association between being Swedish and AC; as such immigrants were more likely to be active commuters (CI 0.08-0.80). The variable mostly associated with AC was the type of residential area. Participants living in an urban area had 5.4 times higher odds of AC compared to participants living in a rural area (CI 1.51-18.54). Being surrounded by a green-space environment decreased the probability of engaging in AC compared to being surrounded by buildings the majority of time (CI 0.07-0.60). Another important variable was outdoor recreational PA, were engaging resulted in 3.9 times higher odds of AC compared to those not engaging in outdoor recreational PA (CI 1.31-11.71). Although the variable pet-ownership remained in the last step of the model non-significant, it explains some of the variance in the model (0.10-1.24). Conclusions: The number of people being active are modest and are instead using other modes of transportation. This study found several factors both facilitating and impeding active commuting, signifying the importance of applying a broad health promotional approach to active commuting.

Objectives: Follow changing physical activity (PA) patterns among women and men during pregnancy compared to before pregnancy. Study design: Longitudinal study. Methods: The study involved 280 individuals, 145 women and 135 men (who were partners to the women), from the municipality of Karlskrona, Sweden. Data were collected during 2008–2009. We measured the self-reported amount of PA performed outdoors and indoors during the 12 months before pregnancy and throughout the entire pregnancy. Results: Among both women and men, we found changes in PA patterns during pregnancy compared to before pregnancy. Women and men were more physically active before pregnancy than during pregnancy. Similar patterns were found among women and men with regard to the type of activity, with both groups taking more exercise and pursuing aquatic sports, indoor PA and non-strenuous activities before pregnancy and more strolling/walking during pregnancy. Conclusions: Our findings contribute new knowledge about changes in men’s PA patterns from pre-pregnancy to pregnancy that is an unexplored field. Changes in the women’s activity patterns during pregnancy also affect the men. Women seem to adjust their activity patterns during the pregnancy. The changes in activity patterns among the men are more tentative but follow the pattern for the women, which could be explained by the couples sharing their everyday lives. Midwives should consider providing information to men about the importance of being physically active during pregnancy and informing them about their role in encouraging women to be physically active.

The aim of this short communication is to stimulate a discussion on the state of a public health profession in Europe and actions which need to be taken to authorise public health professionals based on their competencies. While regulated professions such as medical doctors, nurses, lawyers, and architects can enjoy the benefits of the 2005/ 36/EC Directive amended by 2013/55/EU Directive on the recognition of professional qualifications, public health professionals are left out from these elite. Firstly, we use the profession traits theory as a framework in arguing whether public health can be a legitimate profession in itself, second, we explain who public health professionals are and what usually is required for shaping the public health profession, and thirdly, we attempt to sketch the road to the authorisation or licencing of public health professionals. Finally, we will propose some recommendation.

The aim of the presentation and the following paper was to stimulate debate on the state of a public health profession in Europe and measures and actions which need to be taken to authorise public health professionals based on their competencies.

Today schools and departments of public health (SDPHs), as well as public health professionals are searching for interface and synergies between public health science and practice. They are increasingly relying on partnerships in order to achieve common goals. To collect more information on the fragmented institutional landscape the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER) organised a survey among its full institutional 81 members with the core objective to assess the exit competences of master of public health graduates according to the new Essential Public Health Operations (EPHO) of WHO-EURO. The survey results indicate that usually European SDPHs are small units, funded from tax money. A total of 130 academic programmes released 3035 graduates per last year All selected competences within each EPHO showed high reliability and high internal consistency (alpha>0.75, p<0.01). SDPH assess their best teaching output to be in the field of health promotion, followed by disease prevention and identification of priority health problems and health hazards in the community, while they see the least success regarding preparedness and planning for public health emergencies. Given the fragmentation of the institutional infrastructure, the harmonization of programme content and thinking is impressive. Even more surprising is the observation that the determination of the desired performance by employers of public health professionals for most EPHOs (6 out of 10) is almost congruent with the estimated output of SDPHs. The main objective of the workshop was to continue with permanent dialogue on innovation and good practice in public health education, continuing training and lifelong learning and to strengthen everlasting collaboration of European schools in efforts to improve public health performance.

The current protracted economic crisis is giving rise to the scarcity of public health resources across Europe. In response to budgetary pressures and the Eurozone public debt crisis, decision-makers resort to a short-term solution: the introduction of austerity measures in diverse policy fields. Health and social policy tend to be easy targets in this regard and budget cuts often include a reduction of healthcare expenditure or social welfare benefits. We suggest incorporating discussions from the field of ethics in policy making processes and in the academic debate on austerity. This includes recognising procedural justice as a social value. On the road to economic recovery, governments are compelled to resort to fiscal consolidation and austerity packages but decisions taken to save our European ships in crisis should be anchored in values such as (procedural) justice, equity and solidarity.

Open access journal

Background Due to health effects from participating in physical activity (PA) it is from a public health perspective important to study how participation PA may change over a lifetime and how different life events impact on the participation. Although studies in the field are sparse, parenthood has been found to be a life event associated with decreased PA, especially among women. We studied physical activities performed among women and men with and without children. Methods This study includes data for from parents-to-be, 224 women and 208 men, from Karlskrona municipality, situated in the south eastern part of Sweden. Data collection was carried out during 2008–2009. When contacting the antenatal clinics in the municipality all expectant parents were asked by the midwife about participation in the study. Respondents completed a questionnaire about age, socioeconomic status, level of education, previous children, smoking and alcohol habits, Body Mass Index, self estimated health, and participation in different kinds of outdoor and indoor recreational PA. We measured the self-reported amount of outdoor recreational PA undertaken during the last year. Results Both women and men without children performed more outdoor and indoor PA compared to those who had children. Women walked significantly more (p = 0.017) than men irrespective of whether or not they had children. Women with children participated in significantly more gardening (p = 0.009) and winter sports (p = 0.013) than women without children, and women without children participated in significantly more PA indoors (p = 0.001) than women with children. Men with children participated in significantly more gardening (p = 0.001) than men without children, and men without children participated in significantly more PA indoors (p = 0.006). Conclusions Becoming a parent is a life event that affects participation in PA, both concerning duration and the kind of activities performed. To gain deeper understanding and more insight about reasons for these changed patterns of PA as well as the effects on the outcome of the parents health in a short- and long term would be important to follow prospectively.