Club Health 2010 Steering Committee

Professor Mark Bellis

Professor Mark Bellis is Director of the Centre for Public Health (Liverpool John Moores University), the North West Public Health Observatory and the National Collaborating Centre for Drug Prevention. He leads a team of academics and professionals on national and international projects on alcohol and drug use, sexual behaviour, violence, and public health intelligence, including the UK Focal Point for Drugs (European Monitoring Centre for Drugs Prevention, EMCDDA). Mark is a founding member of Club Health and lead UK academic for IREFREA, an EU collaborative examining substance use (alcohol and drugs), sexual risk taking and prevention in recreational life across Europe. He is a member of the WHO Violence Prevention Alliance, a board member of Alcohol Concern and a member of the Medical Research Council’s College of Experts, and has been an expert advisor on Drug Prevention to the United Nations and the EMCDDA.

Alexander Bucheli

Alex has worked for 8 Years as a social worker for the youth counselling organisation Streetwork, as coordinator of the Recreational Drug Prevention program. During this work he has been involved in the following projects: On-site drug-checking, the build-up of a recreational drug-prevention-centre DIZ, the establishment of a drug-prevention-network in Switzerland and Europe and the foundation of the association ‘Safer Clubbing’.

Rene Akeret

René Akeret was born 1959 and has been working for over 20 years in the field of drug addiction and HIV/Aids. At present he’s managing a harm reduction organization and works independently as a project manager for Safer Clubbing Switzerland as well as a Coach/Advisor.

Thomas Egli

Thomas Egli was born 1954 and has been working for over 17 years with addicted men in a socio-pedagogic field. At present he works for the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health, as a senior policy advisor, responsible for Therapy and Harm Reduction.

Peter Menzi

Andrew M Bennett

Andrew works for HIT and lectures at Liverpool John Moores University. HIT delivers interventions on drugs, community safety and other public health concerns. The agency has implemented social marketing based interventions to protect the health of club-goers since the late 1980s. More recently HIT has also provided interventions concerned with a broader range of nightlife issues www.hit.org.uk. Whilst it is rare to see Andrew on a dance floor nowadays, he remains intrigued by music and other aspects of the ever changing night-time environment.

Amador Calafat

Amador Calafat is a Psychiatrist working in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. He has been actively involved in research and implementation of programmes in risk behaviour and drug prevention since 1980, He is the coordinator of the European research group IREFREA which conducts cross-national investigation of youth risk behaviour and substance use in nightlife settings. He is also the editor of the journal Adicciones.

Paul Dillon

Paul Dillon is currently employed as the Information/ Media Liaison Manager at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, where his key role is to disseminate research findings to policy makers, drug and alcohol workers and the general public. His current areas of interest are drug education, youth issues and the ecstasy/dance party culture.

Matej Kosir

Matej Kosir graduated in political science at University of Ljubljana (Slovenia). He has worked in the field of drugs and drug addiction for last 8 years. He works at the Office for Drugs within the Ministry of Health. Recently he established a private institute (Utrip) for research and development of programmes especially in the field of preventing youth risk behaviour. He is involved in several European research and educational projects co-financed by the European Commission. He is also EDDRA (Exchange on Drug Demand Reduction Action) manager and Legal Correspondent for Slovenia in connection with the EMCDDA (European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction). He is very active as a volunteer at the local level as a project manager of Local Action Group (LAG) of Municipality of Grosuplje (addiction prevention). He is a member of the Slovene Political Science Association and the Rotary Club Grosuplje.

Professor Qutub Syed

Professor Qutub Syed is the Director fo the Health Protection Agency North West as well as Honorary Professor for Public Health and Epidemiology at Liverpool John Moores University and Chester University. For the last 20 years Professor Syed has worked in the field of infection, drugs, sexual health and alcohol.

Paolo Bello

Ninette van Hasselt