The 12^th Annual Global Health Mini-University is being held on September 14^th, 2012, at the Cloyd Heck Marvin Center on George Washington University’s campus. This is a free, day-long event that brings together professionals working in a variety of global health areas with presentations that highlight evidence-based best practices and state-of-the-art information.

At past Mini-U events, over 1,000 students, medical professionals, public health experts, members of the military, NGOs, and various other attendees have taken advantage of this unique networking opportunity to engage with diverse professionals with shared global health interests.

With over 60 concurrent sessions, attendees have a wide range of topics to choose from. Among them, Disrespect and Abuse: Safe Motherhood’s “Veil of Silence” will explain how disrespect and abuse in health systems hinder safe motherhood; Follow the mMoney will teach how mobile technology interventions using mobile money can improve public health indicators; and for those looking to broaden their audience and better disseminate their health promotion messages, Global Health and Social Media: How Do You ‘Like’ that Tweet? will share tips on how to effectively leverage social media tools such as Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter.

Mini-U is divided into hour-long sessions addressing six themes:

1. Cross-Cutting: Integrating health work with development, gender, capacity building, private and voluntary cooperation, environment, and water programs is an important aspect to achieving development goals in a coordinated fashion.
2. Family Planning/Reproductive Health: Voluntary family planning has profound health, economic, and social benefits for families and communities.
3. Health Systems: Health systems strengthening programs provide support to ensure that developing country health systems are effective, efficient, and equitable.
4. HIV/AIDS: More than 34 million people are living with or affected by HIV/AIDS. Prevention, care, and treatment are the cornerstones to tackling this profound global issue.
5. Infectious Diseases: Preventing infectious diseases, such as malaria and tuberculosis, while simultaneously strengthening the treatment and control programs that exist in health care systems is vital to decreasing the global disease burden.
6. Maternal, Infant, and Child Health: A mother's health profoundly affects the health of her children. Many children die from preventable causes which could be avoided through inexpensive, effective, lifesaving interventions.

Visit the Mini-U website to register for this free event. Remember registration closes on September 7, 2012, at 5 pm.