The 2nd international and interdisciplinary conference on
Health, Culture and the Human Body Epidemiology, ethics and history of medicine, perspectives from Turkey and Central Europe Istanbul, Turkey, 13-15 September 2012

Demographic change in a globalized world raises not only social and economic issues but also ethical problems within the medical system of aging societies. Medical care for elderly people cannot be conceptualized and organized without considering a cultural understanding of aging and the economic and social circumstances of a given society. In this regard this conference will focus on ethical, historical and epidemiological perspectives of aging in a global world, including issues such as health care research and health-related knowledge, attitudes and practices of elderly people. Further subjects of the conference are the beginning of life and sexually transmitted diseases, which will also be discussed from an interdisciplinary perspective.

This conference will focus on the selected cases from Turkey, Germany, and other countries which for the last 50 years have been closely connected by substantial migration processes, as they had been earlier through medical scientific exchanges and common clinical practice. After the well received first round held in Germany (Mainz) in 2010, the aim of this second conference is to establish a discussion platform for different ethical considerations among historically connected countries, applying an interdisciplinary “medicine studies” approach to selected sample cases from Turkey, Germany and other countries with comparable relationships.