Professor Peter Adams attended UBUNTU 2024 in Cape Town, South Africa. UBUNTU 2024 was a joint conference between The Network Towards Unity For Health (TUFH) and Rural WONCA. TUFH is an organization that fosters equitable community-oriented health services, education, and research with the goal of improving health locally and globally. WONCA is the World Organisation of Family Doctors and Academic Associations. The conference was held between September 10 and 13 at the University of Western Cape.

Three papers were presented by Professor Adams. These were –

1. Accreditation and accountability of a regional Caribbean University. This paper addressed the processes the University of the West Indies used to achieve full 5-year accreditation of its MB BS programme ensuring accountability to regional governments and people.
2. Worry about affording healthcare among adults on four Caribbean islands – The ECHORN cohort study. The four islands that contribute participants to the cohort are Barbados, Trinidad, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Worry about affording healthcare was associated with the social determinants of health and delays in accessing care. People in Barbados reported the least worry while worry was greatest in Puerto Rico.
3. Leveraging regional stakeholder engagement for diabetes prevention in The Caribbean. This paper was well received with much discussion. It described how the lifestyle intervention used in a diabetes prevention study was adapted for use in the Caribbean. In the lifestyle intervention with metformin escalation (LIME) study, people with prediabetes participated in lifestyle workshops held weekly over 6 weeks.

Collage showing photos from the academic presentations at the University of the Western Cape, the former prison cell of the Late Nelson Mandela, freedom fighter and South African anti-apartheid activist and politician, and first President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and posters of anti-apartheid demonstrations displayed in the apartheid era courthouse in Langa township.