NUTRITION & LIFESTYLE MEDICINE CONFERENCES
Zero commercial funding!
1st of 4 2024 conferences: Sat.-Sun. June 1-2, Raleigh NC + virtual, REGISTRATION OPEN! Advance prices end May 7.
Registration is also OPEN for Sat.-Sun. Sept. 7-8 Newark NJ + virtual, & Virtual Summit Sundays Sept. 29 & Oct. 6.
"P-FLEX" is here! Choose ANY 3 of P-POD's 6 days in 2024, in-person or virtual, for 22.5 total hours! See ALL agendas!
P-POD is HIRING! 16-24 hrs/wk. Nonprofit Healthcare Conference Coordination, Outreach, Quality Control: job.p-pod.org
Addressing Coronavirus
2024 COVID-19 and Public Health Measures
Our nonprofit has always implemented all appropriate science-based COVID-19-related public health precautions / controls we considered applicable at the time, and that always included:
**Do not come if experiencing COVID-like upper respiratory or other symptoms.
**Do not come if someone has exposed you to the coronavirus.
Our COVID-19 vaccine MANDATE was ENDED as of 2023 going forward, based on a vote by all current speakers. If future adverse public health changes justify it, P-POD may need to consider and implement new infection prevention policies that are not currently in place, such as masking mandates.
Thank you for collectively supporting our community's safety! SEE OUR COVID-19 POLICY HISTORY.
UPDATE FOR SEPT. 30 - OCT. 2, 2023 CONFERENCE
COVID-19 and Public Health Measures
Our nonprofit has always implemented all appropriate science-based COVID-19-related public health precautions / controls we considered applicable at the time, and that always included:
**Do not come if experiencing COVID-like upper respiratory or other symptoms.
**Do not come if someone has exposed you to the coronavirus.
**Do always mask on-site while not eating/drinking (deemed single most effective anti-transmission action).
Our COVID-19 vaccine MANDATE has been ENDED in July 2023. Since it began it has been reviewed conscientiously by all of a conference’s SPEAKERS three times in 2022-2023, taking into account evolving evidence about gradual waning of immunity gained via earlier immunizations, and effect on likelihood of transmission. The mandate failed to achieve a majority of the speaker roster in favor in July so is removed. We still assert that vaccination has been a crucially important public health measure during this pandemic! 9/30-10/2/23 registrants who wish to cancel due to the mandate’s end should contact us for assistance.
Thank you for collectively supporting our community's safety!
OLDER INFO, no longer in effect, SEPT. 30 - OCT. 2, 2023
COVID-19 and Public Health Measures
Our nonprofit has always implemented all appropriate science-based COVID-19-related public health precautions / controls we considered applicable at the time, and that always included:
**Do not come if experiencing COVID-like upper respiratory or other symptoms.
**Do not come if someone has exposed you to the coronavirus.
**Do always mask on-site while not eating/drinking (deemed single most effective anti-transmission action).
ALSO, vaccination-related policy has been reviewed several times. For the Sept. 30 - Oct. 2, 2023 P-POD Conference (just as for one year earlier) this has been decided by a VOTE of ALL the conference speakers. After considering pandemic related trends, they asked to continue to mandate just a basic (no boosters) regimen of an original approved monovalent vaccine (two rounds Pfizer / Moderna, one round Johnson and Johnson, or non-U.S. equivalent). They rejected requiring any bivalent boosters. So:
**Participants will later be given a secured web address for uploading an original basic vaccine record.
Thank you for collectively supporting our community's safety.
Below on this page: old archive posts, 2020-2022
OCTOBER 2022 CONFERENCE PROCEDURES
POLICY OVERVIEW. For all 2022 conferences, we are implementing all appropriate science-based COVID-19-related public health precautions / controls deemed applicable at the time, including vaccination requirements and on-site measures. In September we asked all our October speakers to advise whether we should change the approaches we had used for the May/June conferences, based on the marginally shifting relationship between the risk of COVID-19 positivity and basic vaccination status, as found in CDC data over the past half year. There was clearly greater sentiment expressed by the speakers toward retaining rather than removing the basic (not boosted) vaccination mandate.
Therefore, all October participants are being given a secured web address for uploading a record of either 2 rounds of a Pfizer/Moderna vaccine or the single round of a Johnson and Johnson vaccine (or a comparable approved regimen for another country of residence). Public health realities also justify our being prepared to utilize masking most of the time on Oct. 22-23. Thank you for collectively supporting our community's safety.
BEING PREPARED TO RESPOND TO SYMPTOMS. The pandemic is still here, ebbing and flowing. Though these may be unlikely to arise, we all should be mindful about: upper respiratory disturbances, fever, cough, shortness of breath, loss of taste/smell or flu-like symptoms. If you encounter these before travel, or if you have been exposed to the virus, then it is not appropriate to travel to the conference. Do not travel if you meet public health criteria for quarantine. We can for medical reasons apply your registration payments toward any future P-POD Conference, or refund them.
If you experience such symptoms on-site, you should depart from the current activity to seek immediate medical assistance or evaluation. Some hospitals and urgent care centers in the conference site area are:
--Emory Healthcare (hospital), 49 Jesse Hill Jr. Dr. SE, Atlanta,GA 30303, 404-778-7777 (0.3 miles walking or driving)
--Grady Health System (hospital), 80 Jesse Hill Jr. Dr. SE, Atlanta GA 30303, 404-616-1000 (0.3 to 0.4 miles walking or driving)
--Grady Health System Walk-In Center (urgent care) 56 Jesse Hill Jr. Dr. SE, Atlanta GA 30303, 404-616-6661 (0.3 miles walking or driving)
--Urgent Care 24/7 Centennial Park, 285 Centennial Olympic Park Drive Northwest CU-2A, Atlanta GA 30313, 404-721-0444 (0.8 miles walking, 1.1 miles driving)
BEING CAREFUL ON-SITE. We are utilizing masking throughout the conference, except when people are eating, because such precautionary behaviors are still justified for such congregate events at this point in the pandemic. The covers on speakers' microphones are being changed between presentations. For the standing microphone at which attendees ask questions, there will be a small barrier to set the questioner back a tiny distance, and we ask that masks be left on during questioning. Common-sense sanitation procedures like hand-washing at appropriate times, are of course advisable.
MAY 2022 ADD-ON TO STATEMENT BELOW
For May 21-22, 2022 all registrants are being given a secured web address for uploading a record of either 2 rounds of a Pfizer/Moderna vaccine or the single round of a Johnson and Johnson vaccine. Public health realities justify our being prepared to utilize masking most of the time on May 21-22.
FEBRUARY 2022 COMMENT
In the two full years since the beginning of the novel coronavirus pandemic, we, just as nearly everyone else, have needed to shift our assessments and plans numerous times. Our current published COVID-19 policy statement for our three 2022 in-person conferences is quite simple:
"For any of these 2022 events, we would implement all appropriate science-based COVID-19-related public health precautions/controls applicable at the time, including vaccination requirements and on-site measures."
The pandemic is clearly not about to end, and further variants and waves and cycles are ahead, and we must regard the health and safety of our participants (and of our participants' contacts outside of P-POD) as our highest planning priority. Various nuances and details will remain to be clarified based upon circumstances closer to each arrival-day, but we are clear that some requirement of completion of some nationally-recognized COVID-19 vaccination regimen, and some use of masking protocols on-site, will be in effect.
Our determination to restore viable and sustainable in-person educational modalities for health professionals, must be matched by an equivalent determination to use sensible multi-faceted precautions that should reduce any likelihood of infection transmission. Discouraging COVID-19 infection transmission altogether is one crucial society-wide priority. Combating risk factors for chronic diseases, incidence of chronic diseases, and other disparities of health status, any of which increase the likelihood that COVID-19 exposure could lead to severe disease or death, is another crucial priority that our nonprofit focuses on all the time. We believe that NEITHER of these important priorities should be neglected.
SOME PAST ARCHIVES
For historical perspectives, a few of our postings from earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic are posted or linked below.
REVISITING COVID-19 ADAPTATIONS WE HAD ORIGINALLY PLANNED FOR IN-PERSON 2021 CONFERENCES BEFORE VIRTUAL CONVERSION
We knew that significant novel coronavirus threats to and disruption of society would continue throughout 2021, thus for our in-person events we had committed to implementing protective measures such as those we previously designed for our 2020 conference prior to converting to all-virtual.... and much more. On behalf of enhanced participant safety, we had committed to limiting attendance to 15-20% of the capacity of each conference hall, and requiring COVID-19 testing prior to travel, daily temperature screening, disclosure of possible relevant symptoms, masking throughout, distancing procedures, no sharing of microphones, etc. Surely such a range of protocols will need to be implemented at whatever point that large-group educational gatherings might be able to be re-staged in society once again.
As a historical reference, you may view our much earlier April 15, 2020 article "Safety-Supporting Efforts and Standards" with more background detail about how we were initially planning protective measures around the beginning of the pandemic. The article was edited to reflect our conclusion soon after that only 20% or less of the conference hall capacity should be utilized.
MARCH 26, 2020 STATEMENT ABOUT NECESSARY PUBLIC HEALTH RESPONSE TO CRISIS
This was a statement about the profound inadequacy of societal mobilization against COVID-19 at that time, and urgent needs for comprehensive coordinated intervention.