2025 UNC AMWHO INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

what is amwho?

AMWHO is an authentic simulation of the World Health Assembly, the sole decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO). At the AMWHO International Conference, graduate and undergraduate participants will assume the roles of WHO ambassadors, non-governmental organization members, media correspondents, or industry representatives.

Participants will engage in debates and discussion surrounding our theme for this year: Rectifying Historical and Contemporary Prejudices and Oppressions Undermining Global Health. Through collaboration, students will craft approaches to address our world’s pressing public health challenges and draft a final resolution to send to the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.

Throughout the weekend, students will have access to renowned professors from the Gillings School of Global Public Health and public health professionals from the Triangle. Students will hear from and talk to these guest speakers at the opening ceremonies and the Lunch and Learn event.

What is model-who?

concept

Model-WHO is a conference simulation of the World Health Assembly (WHA), the annual global health policy making forum of the World Health Organization (WHO). Students who register for AMWHO conferences are assigned either a WHO Ambassador, NGO Representative, Pharmaceutical Company, or Media Correspondent position, and must represent their role accurately throughout the course of the three-day conference weekend.

Delegates are split into five regional blocks: African Region (AFRO), Americas Region (AMRO), Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO), European Region (EURO), and Western Pacific & Southeast Asian Region (WPRO/SEARO). Prior to the conference, delegates research their position’s stance on the global health policy theme, and create resolutions with fellow participants. On the last day, all regions convene to debate their completed resolutions, emulating the true simulation of the WHA.
WHO AMBASSADORS

A WHO Ambassador is an individual representing a diplomat to one of the 193 Member States to the World Health Organization. Ambassadors have full voting rights within the conference, with a sole goal to pursue their nation’s health interests in the Assembly. These delegates are expected to conduct detailed, in-depth research prior to the conference on their nation’s position with respect to the conference theme, their allies and enemies, and how their nation would react to different proposals. Their main objective is to use the skills of negotiation and diplomacy to create sound, realistic, and effective resolutions with fellow delegates, who very well may hold differing opinions.
NGO Representatives

Delegates representing an NGO must embody the ideals, motives, and objectives of their organization. As an NGO Representative, they will receive a personalized schedule during the conference that allows them to rotate among all regional rooms, and debate with any WHO Ambassador. They must understand all resolutions being formed, with a primary focus in ensuring that each policy holds the ideals of their organization. Ultimately, these delegates provide seals of approval, or written acceptances of a resolution, before all resolutions head to the final plenary. They do not have voting rights, but are able to formally debate.
media correspondents

Media Correspondents are non-voting delegates that hold a unique role in the AMWHO International Conference. They perform research prior to the conference on their company views and biases around the conference theme, but their primary objective is to capture the news and highlights of the conference through video and blog form. They aim to provide news in the same journalistic manner of the company that they represent. Thus, these delegates must be well-versed in how to provide the news in respectful, but accurate way. Media Correspondents will receive assistance in capturing stories, conducting interviews with the voting and non-voting delegates, and presenting the exciting and often controversial happenings in other regional blocks.
industry representatives

Industry Representatives, also non-voting delegates, represent their industries in varied ways as it relates to the conference theme. Still, these players are critical to achieving partnerships with WHO Ambassadors, NGO Representatives, and Pharmaceutical Companies, and thus delegates must be well-researched on their company and its core values as it relates to the theme.

Source: https://www.amwho.org/about-us.php

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Begins in January

Use the link above to register for the 2025 AMWHO International Conference through Eventzilla!

Registration opens on January 6th, 2025 at 12:00 AM.

Early Registration: January 6th, 2025 at 12:00 AM - February 2nd, 2025 at 11:45 PM
Regular Registration: February 3rd, 2025 at 12:00 AM - March 2nd, 2025 at 11:45 PM
Late Registration: March 3rd, 2025 at 12:00 AM - March 23rd, 2025 at 11:45 PM
Observer Registration: January 6th, 2025 at 12:00 AM - March 23rd, 2025 at 11:45 PM

directors' Letter

Dear Delegates and Colleagues,

Welcome to the 2025 UNC American Mock World Health Organization (AMWHO) International Conference, taking place from April 4th-6th, 2025. As the founders of AMWHO, our university has had the opportunity to host several international, regional, and summit conferences. Over the last few years, we have learned the importance of global health governance in protecting population health and facilitating global cooperation to prevent future disasters. Now, we are so pleased and honored to invite you back in person, and we remain inspired by your dedication and passion to build a better future for public health. Our hope is that this conference will offer you a platform for you to engage with multifaceted and interdisciplinary public health issues and work alongside others to develop innovative policy solutions.

As Executive Co-Directors of the conference, we are excited for you to join us in this unique conference experience, modeled after the World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland. Our goal is to create an experience where delegates can explore the complexities of the social, cultural, political, and economic determinants of health, all while collaborating with key stakeholders and interest groups. To account for diverse perspectives that influence global health issues, delegates may represent either a member state, media organization, non-governmental organization, or private corporation. Delegates will also get the opportunity to interact with passionate peers and learn from distinguished speakers, who will engage delegates in thoughtful discussions rooted in their public health expertise. Through these interactions, we hope that you will gain knowledge and skills crucial to becoming a global health leader, allowing you to analyze public health issues through a holistic lens and address these issues through effective policy.

The theme for the 2025 UNC AMWHO International Conference is Bridging Health and Healthcare Disparities between Low, Middle, and High-Income Countries to Achieve Universal Health Coverage. There is a critical need for concerted efforts between countries across socioeconomic settings to promote health equity, especially in addressing growing injustices. We hope that through thoughtful communication and debate regarding inequalities in infectious disease management, disparities in access to quality healthcare, sustainable community-based healthcare initiatives, prioritization of mental health support, unshared technological advancements, and preventive measures for non-communicable diseases, we will foster multisectoral and sustainable solutions.

Lastly, we would like to acknowledge all the hard work that has been put into this conference by the 2024-2025 UNC AMWHO Executive Board and Conference Board: without their dedication over the past several months, none of this would have been possible. We would also like to thank all of you for your commitment to and passion for advancing global public health solutions. We look forward to welcoming you to the 2025 UNC AMWHO International Conference!

Sincerely,
Annabelle Gallinek and Joe Danica Inigo
Conference Co-Directors
2025 UNC AMWHO International Conference

Annabelle Gallinek
Conference
Co-Director

Joe Danica Inigo
Conference
Co-Director

theme introduction

The theme brief gives delegates an overview of the global health challenge that will be discussed and debated over the course of the conference. It includes sub-themes that break-down the intricacies of the problem and provides case studies that describe how countries in different regions of the world have been affected. Delegates may use the theme brief as a resource to write their position paper.

SUBTHEME 1: INEQUALITIES IN INFECTIOUS DISEASE MANAGEMENT

Case Study: The Impact of Malaria on Morbidity and Mortality in LMICs
Case Study: Global Disparities in COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution

SUBTHEME 2: DISPARITIES IN ACCESS TO QUALITY HEALTHCARE

Case Study : Treatment Failures Due to Poor Antibiotic Stewardship
Case Study: Disproportionate Sickle Cell Disease Incidence in Africa

SUBTHEME 3: SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY-BASED HEALTHCARE INITIATIVES

Case Study: Community Empowerment for Guinea Worm Eradication
Case Study: Community Health and Village Health Workers

SUBTHEME 4: PRIORITIZATION OF MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT

Case Study: Post-COVID Effects on Youth Mental Health
Case Study: Effects of Conflicts on Mental Illness

SUBTHEME 5: UNSHARED TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS

Case Study: Preventable Neonatal Deaths in LMICs
Case Study: Artificial Intelligence: Zzapp Malaria

SUBTHEME 6: PRIMARY HEALTHCARE TO REDUCE NON-COMMUNICABLE DISEASE (NCDs) THROUGH PREVENTION

Case Study: Rwanda's National Cervical Cancer Prevention Program
Case Study: Increased Risk and Prevalence of Diabetes in LMICs Without Corresponding Treatment

POSITION PAPERS ARE DUE: TBD
CHECK DELEGATE HUB FOR SUBMISSION GUIDELINES AND EXAMPLES!

conference schedule

Friday, April 4th

11:00 - 12:00 PM: Delegate Check-In
12:00 - 1:30 PM: Opening Ceremony
1:30 - 1:45 PM: Break
1:45 - 3:15 PM: Committee Session 1
3:15 - 3:45 PM: Break
3:45 - 4:45 PM: Press Conference and NGO Presentations
4:45 - 5:00 PM: Break
5:00 - 6:30 PM: Banquet and Key-Note Speaker

Saturday, April 5th

8:00 - 9:15 AM: Check-In and Breakfast
9:15 - 11:00 AM: Committee Session 2
11:00 - 11:15 AM: Break
11:15 - 12:45 PM: Lunch and Learn
12:45 - 2:45 PM: Committee Session 3
2:45 - 3:15 PM: Break
3:15 - 4:00 PM: Press Conference
4:00 - 6:00 PM: Committee Session 4

Sunday, April 6th

8:00 - 9:00 AM: Breakfast
9:00 - 11:00 AM: Plenary Session 1
11:00 - 12:00 PM: Lunch
12:00 - 2:00 PM: Plenary Session 2
2:00 - 2:30 PM: Break
2:30 - 3:30 PM: Closing Ceremonies

GUEST SPEAKERS

Opening Ceremony Keynote Speaker

Ms. Loyce Pace, MPH
Ms. Loyce Pace, MPH, is an outspoken advocate and expert on domestic and international health issues, from AIDS to Zika. With 25 years of experience in policy, programs, and funding, she has lobbied decision-makers worldwide on the value of investing in emerging priorities. Having lived and worked on the ground across five continents, her efforts are rooted in experience partnering with a wide range of global stakeholders, including government officials, multilateral bodies, corporations, nonprofit organizations, universities, and community-based and grassroots leaders. A resilient daughter of the inner city who has worked her way into the halls of Congress and the UN, she is keen to pass the baton to other champions for equity and justice who challenge the rollback of rights and progress.

Most recently, Loyce served as Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where she advanced the U.S. international health agenda through multilateral and bilateral forums, including the G7, G20, UNGA, and the World Health Assembly. Previously, she was President & Executive Director of the Global Health Council (GHC) and a member of the Biden-Harris Transition COVID-19 Advisory Board, advocating for increased federal investments in global health.

Lunch and Learn speakers

Dr. Juan Marcos Gonzalez, PhD
Dr. Juan Marcos Gonzalez, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the School of Medicine at Duke University. With more than 16 years of experience leading health-preference studies, Dr. Gonzalez has played a pivotal role in establishing stated-preference methods as an essential tool in patient-centered healthcare. His research focuses on discrete-choice experiments to investigate patients’ and physicians’ treatment preferences in therapeutic areas such as cancer, psoriasis, and vaccine-preventable diseases.

Dr. Gonzalez led the first FDA-sponsored preference study evaluating benefit-risk tradeoffs for weight-loss devices, which was highlighted in the FDA’s precedent-setting guidance for submitting patient-preference evidence in regulatory evaluations. He has contributed significantly to defining best practices for analyzing and reporting health preference data as a member of the ISPOR Conjoint Analysis Task Force. Additionally, he was part of a select group of researchers commissioned to prepare the first catalog of preference elicitation methods for the Patient-Centered Benefit-Risk Assessment Framework. Dr. Gonzalez is a founding member and the current Chair of the International Academy of Health Preference Research (IAHPR).

Mr. Gene W. Matthews, JD
Mr. Gene W. Matthews, JD, is a public health law consultant and adjunct professor at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health in Chapel Hill, NC. A widely published expert, he frequently speaks on topics such as public health messaging in polarized political environments, strengthening political skills in the public health workforce, and the future of public health leadership and legal authority. He is also a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the APHA Public Health Law Section.

Gene’s legal career includes extensive global experience, beginning with four years in the 1970s living in Micronesia, where he worked on World War II damage claims brought against the U.S. and Japanese governments. He later became the chief legal officer for the CDC, serving for 25 years and handling precedent-setting public health law issues, including the global onset of AIDS, large-scale vaccination programs, and legal responses to public health emergencies post-9/11.

Since returning to UNC in 2006, Gene has taught public health law and ethics and served as the founding director of the Southeastern Region of the Network for Public Health Law. He has also been a senior investigator at the North Carolina Institute for Public Health, providing legal technical assistance to state and local health officials during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, he continues to advance the field of public health law and advocate for increasing political skill sets within the public health workforce.

Dr. Susan Brems, PhD
Dr. Susan Brems, PhD, is a senior global health and development professional with extensive experience managing complex health programs and leading large teams at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Over her 40-year career in international development, she has played a key role in advancing global health initiatives, serving as USAID Mission Director for the Philippines, Pacific Islands, Mongolia, Zambia, and Angola. She also held the position of Deputy Assistant Administrator in USAID’s Bureau for Global Health, where she helped shape policies and programs addressing global health challenges. Additionally, Dr. Brems has collaborated with the World Bank and the American Public Health Association to promote health equity and strengthen health systems worldwide.

Gaurav Dave, MBBS, DrPH, MPH

Dr. Dave is a Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). Dr. Dave trained as a physician in India with a master's degree and a doctorate in public health from UNC-Greensboro. He has over 20 years of experience in clinical/public health research, chronic disease (e.g., cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, cancer) management in rural settings, community engagement, implementation science, and program evaluation. Dr. Dave’s research foci are two-pronged – (1) addressing adverse social determinants of health associated with chronic diseases and (2) evaluating multi-level, multi-component, complex programs. He partners with various multi-sectoral (e.g., housing, transportation, safety-net clinic, healthcare) organizations to plan and implement interventions that improve chronic disease outcomes, particularly in rural settings. Community engagement and implementation science foundationally ground his research approach. Dr. Dave is one of the Principal Investigators for the National Institutes of Health's Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics-Underserved Populations (RADx-UP). The RADx-UP Program provides critical findings to inform ongoing clinical and public health efforts to improve the reach, acceptance, uptake, and sustainability of COVID-19 testing and prevention in communities across the United States. Dr. Dave is also a Principal Investigator for three studies (2 R01s and one U01) funded by the National Institutes of Health to address adverse social determinants of health associated with chronic disease (cardiovascular and chronic kidney diseases) in rural North Carolina. He is also a site Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator on multiple grants funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Department of Health and Human Services.

reviews, publications, & media

"Students said AMWHO had “revived [their] passion for diplomacy and advocacy,” and described the experience as one that “could not be found in a classroom” and “influential” for their future plans. 35 of 39 respondents (90%) rated the experience as “good” or better, and 38 of 39 (97%) would recommend AMWHO to a friend."

"AMWHO is a useful forum for students to improve their knowledge of global health issues, and sharpen their skills in diplomacy, communication, problem solving, and conflict resolution."

"The vast majority (98%) of respondents from the AMWHO 2014 conference indicated the conference as being "good" or "better", and 90% of respondents indicated they would recommend the conference to a friend... The American Mock World Health Organization fills a gap in global health policy education by providing students with the opportunity to develop skills essential to careers in global health governance."

"By encouraging students to network with current professionals, AMWHO facilitates collaboration and communication between passionate individuals working to make a difference. It is surreal to think that the friends I made over the three day conference can one day be colleagues, or the global health professionals I networked with could one day be mentors. Sitting in the conference, I envisioned the other students and myself one day becoming a part of the WHO in order to make meaningful change by helping those without health care access or affordability."

"Global health crises are unimaginably complex. In listening to and participating in discourse during AMWHO 2016, I was forced to consider interests beyond my own. I was reminded of the opening addresses by Dr. del Rio and Dr. Weiss. There are multitudes of stakeholders, each with their own, often conflicting interests. Resources are always limited and compliance is almost never guaranteed. Perhaps the greatest lesson I took away from AMWHO was how truly difficult it is to work in the field of global health. But having spent the weekend engaging with equally enthusiastic individuals and having passed a resolution together, I came away with a renewed sense of determination that solutions, while complex, are not beyond our reach."

"I think one of the problems with the undergraduate mindset is that we think we think we don’t have the tools to solve problems when we do," she said. "And I think events like this get undergraduates to realize that they can and will make a difference if they set their mind to it.”

faq

WHO CAN ATTEND?

AMWHO conferences are open to undergraduate and graduate students who are interested in public health, medicine, public policy, international relations, foreign diplomacy, and intergovernmental delegation. There is no required "major" or course of study that participants must have in order to attend an AMWHO conference. Students across the United States and abroad are invited to attend. A limited number of high school students will be able to apply to attend the conference at a later date (more information to come).

WHERE IS THE CONFERENCE BEING HELD?

The conference will be hosted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at the Gillings School of Global Public Health. For details regarding times and room assignments please check out our delegate guide under the Delegate Hub page.

WHICH ROLES CAN I CHOOSE FROM IN THIS CONFERENCE?

Delegates may choose to be WHO Ambassadors, NGO Representatives, Media Correspondents, and Industry Representatives. More information about these roles are included in the 'About AMWHO' section.

DO I HAVE TO BE IN AN AMWHO CHAPTER TO ATTEND?

If your university does not have an AMWHO chapter, you may register yourself as an individual participant.

HOW MUCH IS THE REGISTRATION FEE?

Early registration for UNC students ($55) and non-UNC students ($65) opens on January 6, 2025, at 12:00 AM and closes on February 2, 2025, at 11:45 PM. Regular registration for UNC students ($65) and non-UNC students ($75) runs from February 3, 2025, at 12:00 AM to March 2, 2025, at 11:45 PM. Late registration for UNC students ($75) and non-UNC students ($85) is open from March 3, 2025, at 12:00 AM to March 23, 2025, at 11:45 PM. Observer registration ($50) is available from January 6, 2025, at 12:00 AM to March 23, 2025, at 11:45 PM.

Didn't answer your question? Please don't hesitate to contact us at [email protected].

sponsorsHIP

The 2025 UNC AMWHO Executive Board would like to thank our 2025 AMWHO sponsors, without whom the 2025 AMWHO International Conference would not be possible. Please check back for updates on new 2025 sponsors.

For more information on how your academic institution or corporate organization can work with us, please email [email protected].