ESSA appears to represent an initiative whereby research institutions, the progressive health sector and the National Health Department agreed to combine forces to support the development of epidemiology as a basis for sound public health practice in Southern Africa. During the 1980's and early 1990s ESSA performed a vital role as a forum for the presentation and discussion of population based health research, much of it critically interrogating inequalities in health status and inadequacies of policy and service responses, predominately within South Africa, with some material from neighboring countries. Since the transition to democracy, public health and its basic science of epidemiology, have assumed greater prominence in health policy and in health professions education. This has resulted in large numbers of health service students and health-related personnel being exposed to epidemiology and public health and being challenged to engage with these concepts. ESSA also played a pioneering role in providing training in epidemiology in Southern Africa through a series of basic and advanced epidemiology workshops run at the same time as the annual conference.
Public health is broader and more inclusive than epidemiology.
Only some public health professionals would also consider themselves to be epidemiologists. Thus, in terms of professional organisations, public health associations far outnumber epidemiological associations globally.