Conference Program

2026 Conference

Reimagining Population Health Science to Build Trust and Influence

Join us in Portland Oregon from September 29 – October 2, 2026

The 2026 IAPHS Annual Meeting theme will be “Reimagining Population Health Science to Build Trust and Influence,” reflecting a commitment to charting a new course for the field—one where rigor meets relevance and knowledge drives meaningful change. As researchers confront rising skepticism of science and scientists, reimagining how we produce and share evidence is essential to the future of population health science and population health at large. Planned plenaries will highlight research and communication strategies to (re)build trust and influence with a broad range of stakeholders.

2026 PRELIMINARY AGENDA

2025 AGENDA (INTERACTIVE)

2026 PLENARY SPEAKERS

“Public-Facing Communication in a Polarized World: Front-line Perspectives”

September 30, 9:00AM-10:30AM

Lisa Rosenbaum

“Research for Impact: New approaches to production and publication”

October 01, 9:00AM-10:30AM

Sandro Galea

BIO
Sandro Galea is the Margaret C Ryan Dean of the School of Public Health, the Eugene S and Constance Kahn Distinguished Professor in Public Health, and Vice Provost of Interdisciplinary Initiatives at Washington University in St. Louis. He has been named an epidemiology innovator by Time, a top voice in healthcare by LinkedIn, and is one of the most cited social scientists in the world. His writing and work are featured regularly in national and global public media. A native of Malta, he has served as a field physician for Doctors Without Borders and has held academic and leadership positions at Boston University, Columbia University, University of Michigan, and the New York Academy of Medicine.

Brian Nosek

BIO
Brian Nosek’s research and applied interests are to understand how people and systems produce values-misaligned behavior; to develop, implement, and evaluate solutions to align behavior with values; and, to improve research methods and culture to accelerate progress in science. Nosek co-developed the Implicit Association Test, a method that advanced research and public interest in implicit bias. Nosek co-founded three non-profit organizations: Project Implicit to advance research and education about implicit bias, the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science to improve the research culture in his home discipline, and the Center for Open Science (COS) to improve rigor, transparency, integrity, and reproducibility across research disciplines. Nosek is Executive Director of COS and a professor at the University of Virginia. Nosek received his undergraduate degree in Psychology with minors in Computer Science and Women’s Studies from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo in 1995, and his PhD in Psychology from Yale in 2002. He received honorary doctorates in science from Ghent University (2019) and University of Bristol (2022). Click here to learn more.

Cory Jane Clark

BIO
Cory Clark is an Associate Professor of Psychology at New College of Florida and the Executive Director of the Adversarial Collaboration Project at University of Pennsylvania. She received her PhD in Social and Personality Psychology from University of California, Irvine, and previously worked as an Assistant Professor of Behavioural Science at Durham University and as the Director of Academic Engagement for Heterodox Academy. Her research explores how social, moral, and political motivations interfere with pursuit of truth.

“Narratives, Influence, and Trust: Lessons from research and practice”

October 02, 9:00AM-10:30AM

Sarah Gollust

BIO
Sarah Gollust is an Associate Professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Dr. Gollust is a social scientist studying the intersections of communication, politics, and health policy. In her past research, she has examined media influences and public opinion around significant health policy issues, including obesity, health disparities, the Affordable Care Act, and cancer screening. Dr. Gollust was a RWJF Health & Society Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania from 2008 to 2010 and she received her PhD in Health Services Organization and Policy from the University of Michigan. She is a founding member of the Collaborative on Media and Messaging (COMM) for Health and Social Policy (commhsp.org).

Lori Dorfman

BIO
Lori Dorfman believes that people who have a stake in the outcome should have a voice in the process. When she was a graduate student at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health, with her dissertation chair Lawrence Wallack, she co-founded Berkeley Media Studies Group to put that belief into practice. With the talented staff at BMSG, Dr. Dorfman conducts research to help advocates, policy makers, and journalists understand how public health issues are covered in the media. The research informs the professional education BMSG provides for journalists and the media advocacy training BMSG conducts for organizers, advocates, and public health practitioners so they can raise their voices in policy debate. Since 1993, BMSG has worked with thousands of advocates across the country who have been changing policy at the local, state and federal level on many issues including tobacco, food, housing, early childhood, health equity, and various types of violence and trauma, among other issues. Dr. Dorfman was part of a groundbreaking interdisciplinary team that helped news organizations include a public health perspective in their crime and violence coverage. She led a team working with the National Sexual Violence Resource Center that uncovered the most effective ways to bring prevention to the fore in our public conversation about sexual violence. With colleagues at Center for Science in the Public Interest, she co-convened the Food Marketing Workgroup, a national network dedicated to eliminating harmful food marketing by identifying, investigating, and advocating changes to marketing practices that undermine health, especially those practices targeting children and youth of color and collaborated with the Center for Digital Democracy on exposing digital marketing that targets children and youth. BMSG is a project of the Public Health Institute.
Dr. Dorfman also teaches Mass Communication in Public Health at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is Adjunct Professor. Dr. Dorfman’s publications are available from http://www.bmsg.org/.