The Standing Committee on Public Health (SCOPH)  is one of the six committees under the umbrella of IFMSA, which primarily deals with the public health concern functioning at the root level, directly dealing with the stakeholders associated. Often public health is overlooked in our medical curriculum, but SCOPH with its unwavering zeal is contributing to public health by imparting capacity building sessions, training, advocacy, health campaign, seminars, webinars and social media campaigns which intricately uplifts health education, health promotion, wellbeing, disease prevention and overall achieving SDG 2030.

Medical students of the IFMSA formed the Standing Committee on Students’ Health (SCOSH) in 1952, driven by a strong will to take an active part in preventing and making policies concerning health problems. During the following years, the wide variety of activities led to the change of SCOSH to the Standing Committee on Health (SCOH) in 1963.

In 1983 the name of the Committee changed once more to the Standing Committee on Public Health (SCOPH).

Since the birth of BMSS, SCOPH is going strong with more than 35 offline and online events covering issues like communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases, mental health, environment and health for all promoting intersectoral collaboration as well.

SCOPH has touched countless lives with their commendable initiatives. In the event, “Check your Bumps for Lumps-Breast Cancer awareness month” SCOPHEROES arranged training sessions and taught the garments workers of Shanta Denim Limited self-breast examination. On health day, SCOPH arranged “Let’s beat the Heat” where they have distributed drinking water to underprivileged people working under the sun. Even in mental health SCOPH has arranged numerous events like the mental health project in collaboration with freedom within where day-long mental health workshops occurred. Let’s Tie Green Ribbon is also a noteworthy event on mental health where SCOPH transcended the boundaries of Bangladesh and collaborated with countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, India and Pakistan on capacity building sessions. Recently in the aspect of communicable disease, “Mission Hepatitis Free Future” combined a hepatitis screening workshop and a social media awareness campaign. Many more Public Health events are yet to come by SCOPH!!!!

Medical Students attain the optimal skills and knowledge to contribute to their full potential towards the making of healthier communities in their capacity as medical students and as future healthcare providers.

The Standing Committee on Public Health promotes the development of medical students worldwide regarding Public Health issues through an international sharing knowledge network, projects management, community-based learning, capacity building, advocacy, exchanges placements and access to external learning opportunities.

• Disease prevention within our society.
• Health promotion and education within our society.
• Raising awareness about global public health issues within medical students and our society.
• Advocating for health policies as the voice of worldwide medical students.
• Developing skills and knowledge of medical students as the future health professionals.
• Working as an international team and collaborating with external public health organizations to use the potential of over one million worldwide medical students.
• Collaborate with other fields such as medical education, human rights, and reproductive health.