The Penn Summit on Global Issues in Women’s Health is conceived to provide a forum for exchange of ideas about the most pressing women’s health concerns. The Summit embraces a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach to women’s health issues within an international context. In planning the Summit, women’s daily lives and challenges provided the context for the specific topics selected as a focus. The Summit includes local, national, and international speakers. Speakers will be selected to represent Africa, Southeast Asia and the United States in this seminal dialog about women’s health.

The Penn Summit is designed to foster the exchange of ideas between researchers, practitioners, and educators concerned about improving the health status of women; offer a unique opportunity for international experts to share information and examine ways in which environment and sociopolitical issues impact women; and promote critical assessment of care models used to promote health and prevent illness in women within a context of oppression, marginalization, and violence.

The summit is planned to benefit thought leaders in women’s health, development and international affairs. While an international gathering is targeted, it is likely that the majority of the attendees will be drawn from academic institutions and NGOs in the United States. Among those invited will be representatives from media, government and policymaking, philanthropy and research. The summit will be open to the Penn community, staff, students, and faculty with an interest in women’s health and related issues.

The sponsoring schools are planning for a core audience of 200-225 persons. The keynote addresses will take place in larger venues to accommodate a larger audience and what is anticipated to be broader interest from students and the general Penn community. The proceedings will also be available as a live simulcast via the world wide web, using both “regular” Internet and Internet 2, a high-band width, high-quality MPEG-2 and DVTS multi-cast transmission accessible to member academic research institutions and corporate affiliates worldwide. It is anticipated that Penn will be able to re-broadcast this program via the Research Channel, a nonprofit consortium comprising leading research, universities, institutions and corporate research centers, of which Penn is a founding member. The Research Channel operates a continuous webcast and searchable on-demand video library of programming by its members that is available to audiences worldwide and broadcasts 24 hours-a-day to over 17 million households through the United States on the DISH Network and cable television systems.