On May 30th , 2018, in the city of Monterrey Nuevo León, Mexico, the first virtual meeting was held by Skype from the Northeastern Node as part of the activities of the Binational Border Health Thematic Network (BBHTN).
Taking as headquarters the facilities of the Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo en Ciencias de la Salud (Center for Research and Development in Health Sciences – CIDICS), of the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo Leon (UANL), the following attended in person the state of Nuevo Leon: Dora Elia Cortes Hernández, Raquel Benavides Torres, Dora Julia Onofre Rodríguez, Fuensanta López Rosales, Francisco González Salazar, David Castañeda Vázquez, Rosa María Sánchez, Brenda Giselle Álvarez Rodríguez, Jorge Jesús Rodríguez Rojas, Verónica Velasco Villavicencio, Humberto Salazar Sessaty, Zaira González Contreras and Social Service students Abigail Estrello Ortiz, Kelly Rubi Mederes Garza and Linda Ivette González Campos.
Virtually through the Skype Tamaulipas platform: María de la Luz Vázquez Sauceda, Jorge Alva Pérez, Lorena Garrido Olvera, Ivonne Ceballos Olvera, Carlos Arturo Hernández Gracidas, Claudio Castellanos Sánchez, Gabriela Adame Acosta, Rigoberto López Zavala, Said Hernández Contreras, Seferino Blanco Martínez, Flaviano Benavidez González, Edgar Pérez Arriaga; Texas: Genny Carrillo; Coahuila: Juan Cardona.
The general objective was to review the action plan of the Binational Border Health Thematic Network of the current year as well as members participation of this node, in order to achieve objectives discussed during the last meeting of the CTA.
Dr. Dora Elia Cortes Hernández and Dr. María de la Luz Vázquez Sauceda, participated by presenting the agreements discussed at the Academic Technical Committee previous meeting during February.
As a strategy to deepen the knowledge of the professional profile of node members and in particular, the knowledge generation lines and research projects in which they participate, a dynamic presentation was established which allowed to identify opportunity areas to strengthen the contributions and collaborations of the members of the same or another node.
The proposal of the reconstruction of the node was presented through commissions aligned to the four objectives of the network which are: the strengthening of collaboration among the different individuals and organizations of the public, private and social sectors of the ten states of the U.S. -Mexico border; the generation, scientific dissemination and knowledge transfer developed by the Network; the setting of guidelines and/or interventions for the attention of health problems identified in the region; and the development and training of human resources involved with the different activities of public health in the border region.
Zaira González and Dr. Edgar Pérez Arriaga made known the selection process to become members of the Network, they also mentioned the upcoming update changes on the BBHTN website. Likewise, they were invited to send a letter as soon as possible expressing their interest of being a member of the Binational Thematic Network on Border Health.
It was finalized mentioning that the next meeting will be face-to-face in the month of September and the last one would be virtual in the month of November.