Oxford Textbook of Public Health

This fifth edition of the ever-popular Oxford Textbook of Public Health has been thoroughly updated, and remains the ultimate resource on the subject of public health and epidemiology. Two new editors, Mary Ann Lansang and Martin Gulliford, join the established editor team of Roger Detels and Robert Beaglehole, representing a truly global outlook from four continents. The contributors are drawn from across the world, offering perspectives from vastly different health systems, with ranging public health needs and priorities. With contributors including Dr Margaret Chan, Director of the World Health Organization, this book offers a globally comprehensive picture of modern health. Now available in paperback and condensed into a single volume, the book retains its approach of dividing the complex, dynamic subject of public health into three topics. First, the scope of public health is covered, looking at the development of the discipline, determinants of health and disease, public health policies, and law and ethics. The textbook then focuses on the methods of public health, including the main science behind the discipline - epidemiology. Environmental factors, information systems, and social science techniques are also considered. Finally, theory is put into practice, examining specific public health problems and options for prevention and control. As well as identifying these issues by system or disease, there is also an awareness of the unique needs of particular population groups. The book concludes with an analysis of the functions of public health, and a look at the future of public health in the 21st century. The picture of world health has moved on dramatically since the publication of the fourth edition in 2002. This new edition includes substantial new material on the impact of private support of public health; globalization; water and sanitation; leadership; community-intervention trials; disease and infection; gene environment interactions; obesity and physical inactivity; urbanization; minorities and indigenous populations; health needs assessment; clinical epidemiology; and the practice of public health. This ensures that the Oxford Textbook of Public Health remains the most comprehensive, accessible text for both students and practitioners in public health and epidemiology. Contributors to this volume - Salim S. Abdool Karim, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, USA Quarraisha Abdool Karim, Associate Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, USA Maia Ambegaokar, Health Systems Development Programme, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK Ian Anderson, Centre for Health and Society, Onemda VicHealth Koori Health Unit, University of Melbourne, Australia Roy M. Anderson, Chair in Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Division of Epidemiology, Public Health and Primary Care, Imperial College London, USA Samira Asma, Associate Director, Global Tobacco Control Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Office on Smoking and Health, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Gunilla Backman, Senior Researcher, Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, UK Rajiv Bahl, Department of Pediatrics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India Dean Baker, Professor and Director, Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, University of California, USA H. J. Bambrick, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Catherine R. Bateman, Public Health & Community Medicine, School of Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia Robert Beaglehole, Professor Emeritus, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand Ruth L. Berkelman, Clinical Professor; Rollins Chair; Director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness and Research, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Douglas Bettcher, Tobacco Free Initiative, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland Zulfiqar Ahmed Bhutta, Husein Lalji Dewraj Professor of Pediatrics & Chairman, Department of Pediatrics & Child Health, The Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan Stella Bialous, President, Tobacco Policy International, San Francisco, California, USA Fred Binka, Executive Director, INDEPTH Network, Accra, Ghana Jennifer Bishop Marike Boezen, Department of Epidemiology, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, The Netherlands Paolo Boffetta, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France Diana Bonta, School of Policy, Planning and Development, University of Southern California, USA Cynthia Boschi-Pinto, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation and Fluminense Federal University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil James Bowen, Department of Neurology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA James W. Buehler, Research Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Center for Public Health Preparedness and Research, Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Judith Bueno de Mesquita, Senior Researcher, Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, UK Wylie Burke, Department of Medical History and Ethics, University of Washington, Seattle WA, USA Jason W. Busse, Department of Medicine, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Julie E. Byles, Director, Centre for Research and Education in Ageing, University of Newcastle, Royal Newcastle Hospital, Newcastle, NSW, Australia Meredith Cagle Simon Carroll, Associate Director, The Centre for Community Health Promotion Research, University of Victoria, Canada Margaret Chan, Director, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland Venkatraman Chandra-Mouli, Head, Adolescent Health and Development, Department of Child and Adolescent Health and Development, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland Leda Chatzi, Department of Social Medicine, Medical School, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece Chien-Jen Chen, Genomics Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan Virasakdi Chongsuvivatwong, Epidemiology Unit, Faculty of Medicine, Prince of Songkla University, Hat Yai, Songkhla, Thailand Aileen Clarke, Health Sciences Research Institute, University of Warwick, UK Thomas Clasen, Senior Lecturer, Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK Myles Cockburn, Assistant Professor of Research, Department of Preventive Medicine , University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA Bernadette Daelmans, Department of Child and Adolescent Health and Development, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland George Davey Smith, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, UK Peter Davis, Professor, Sociology of Health and Well-Being, University of Auckland, New Zealand Manuel Dayrit, Director, Human Resources for Health, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland Katherine DeLand, Legal Officer, WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, Geneva, Switzerland Rodolfo Dennis, Professor of Medicine, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana; Head, Departments of Medicine and Research, Fundacion Cardioinfantil Instituto de Cardiologia, Bogota, Colombia Don C. Des Jarlais, Director of Research for The Baron Edmond de Rothschild Chemical Dependency Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center; Research Fellow with the National Development and Research Institutes, Inc.; Professor of Epidemiology and Social Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, USA Roger Detels, Professor of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases, UCLA Schools of Public Health and Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, USA Ana V. Diez Roux, Professor, Epidemiology; Director, Center for Integrative Approaches to Health Disparities; Associate Director, Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health, University of Michigan, USA Allan Donner, Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, The University of Western Ontario, Canada John M. Douglas, Jr., Director, Division of STD Prevention, National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Jeroen Douwes, Centre for Public Health Research, Massey University Wellington Campus, Wellington, New Zealand Manjit Dosanjh, Advisor to the Director General, Life Sciences and International Organisations, CERN, Geneva, Switzerland Lesley Doyal, Professor of Health and Social Care, Centre for Health and Social Care, University of Bristol, UK Shah Ebrahim, Professor of Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK Matthias Egger, Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health, Institute of Social & Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern, Switzerland Marcos Espinal, Marcos Espinal, Executive Secretary, Stop TB Partnership Secretariat, WHO Geneva, Switzerland Daniel Ferrante, Epidemiologist, Tobacco Free Initiative, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland Peter Figueroa, Chief of Epidemiology and HIV/AIDS, National HIV/STI program, Jamaica Josep Figueras, Director of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies; Head, WHO European centre on health policy, Brussels, Belgium Louise Finer, Senior Researcher, Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, UK Julio Frenk, Senior Fellow, Global Health Program, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Chairman of the Board, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, Seattle, Washington, USA Baruch Fischhoff, Howard Heinz University Professor, Department of Social and Decision Sciences and Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA Oliver Fontaine, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland Sven Francque, Department of Emergency Care, University Hospital Antwerp, Belgium Melvyn Freeman, Professor , Human Sciences Research Council, Pretoria, South Africa Lawrence M. Friedman, Marion Rice Kirkwood Professor of Law, Stanford Law School, California, USA Paul Fu, Jr., Chief Medical Information Officer at the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, California, USA Michelle Funk, Coordinator, Mental Health Policy and Service Development, Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland Gary Giovino, Professor and Acting Chair, Department of Health Behavior, School of Public Health and Health Professions, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, USA Lynn R. Goldman, Professor, Environmental Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA Bernard D. Goldstein, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, USA Octavio Gomez-Dantes, Instituto CARSO de Salud, Mexico Miguel Angel Gonzalez-Block, Director for Health System Research, National Institute of Public Health, Mexico Fernando Gonzalez-Martin, Technical Officer, International Health Regulations, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland Sherwood L. Gorbach, Professor of Public Health, Medicine, and Molecular Biology/ Microbiology, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, USA Lawrence W. Green, Adjunct Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California at San Francisco, USA Manfred S. Green, Center for the Study of Bioterrorism, Tel Aviv University; Israel Center for Disease Control, Gertner Institute, Tel Hashomer, Israel Sander Greenland, Departments of Epidemiology and Statistics, University of California, Los Angeles, USA Martin Gulliford, Department of Public Health Sciences, King's College London, UK Emily Grundy, Professor, Centre for Population Studies, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK Davidson R. Gwatkin, Consultant on Health and Poverty, Washington, D.C., USA Davidson H. Hamer, Associate Professor of International Health and Medicine, Department of International Health, Boston University School of Public Health; Adjunct Associate Professor of Nutrition, Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Boston, USA Christopher Hamlin, Professor, Department of History, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA Summer Hammide Marian T. Hannan, Institute for Aging Research, Hebrew Senior Life, Roslindale, Massachusetts, USA Piya Hanvoravongchai, Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand David Heymann, Assistant Director-General, Health Security and Environment; Representative of the Director-General for Polio Eradication, WHO Geneva, Switzerland Robert A. Hiatt, Director of Population Science and Deputy Director of the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California at San Francisco, USA Marcia Hills, Professor, School of Nursing; Director, Centre for Community Health Promotion Research, University of Victoria, Canada Katherine J. Hoggatt, Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, U.S.A W.W. Holland, Visiting Professor, LSE Health and Social Care, London, UK T. Deirdre Hollingsworth, Research Associate, Division of Epidemiology, Public Health and Primary Care, Imperial College London, UK Robert L. Hubbard, Director, Institute for Community-Based Research, National Development and Research Institute Inc., Raleigh, North Carolina; Adjunct Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA Paul Hunt, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable standard of health; Professor, Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, UK; Adjunct Professor, University of Waikato, New Zealand Adnan A. Hyder, Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of International Health; Center for Injury Research & Policy, Baltimore, MD, USA Sopon Iamsirithaworn, Bureau of Epidemiology, Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Public Health, Nonthaburi, Thailand Alec Irwin, Department of Equity, Poverty, and Social Determinants of Health, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland W. P. T. James, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, International Obesity TaskForce, IASO, London, UK Dean T. Jamison, Professor of Health Economics, School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, USA Stephen Jan, Health Economist, The George Institute of International Health, University of Sydney, Australia Mary L. Kamb, International Activities Coordinator, Division of STD Prevention, National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia Nancy Kass, John's Hopkins University, USA Jennifer L. Kelsey, Professor of Health Research and Policy, Emerita, Health Research and Policy Department, Stanford University, California, USA Robert J. Kim-Farley, Director, Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Los Angeles County Public Health, California, USA Dragana Korljan, Human Rights Officer, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland Manolis Kogevinas, Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology; Municipal Institute of Medical Research; CIBER Epidemiologia y Salud Publica, Spain; Department of Social Medicine, Medical School, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece David Koh, Professor and Head, Department of Community, Occupational and Family Medicine, National University of Singapore, Republic of Singapore Leeka Kheifets, Professor of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University College of Los Angeles, California, USA Muin J. Khoury, National Office of Public Health Genomics, Coordinating Center for Health Promotion, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta GA, USA Rajat Khosla, Senior Researcher, Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, UK Mary Kindhauser, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland Richard Knight, National CJD Surveillance Unit, Western General Hospital, and Department of Clinical Neuroscience, University of Edinburgh, UK Walter A. Kukull, Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA Vipat Kuruchittham, The College of Public Health Sciences, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand Carlo La Vecchia, Institute of Pharmacological Research and Institute of Medical Statistics and Biometrics, University of Milan, Italy Kamakshi Lakshminarayan, Assistant Professor, Medical Center, Fairview, Hennepin County Medical Center, University of Minnesota, USA Mary Ann Lansang, Professor of Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology, College of Medicine, University of the Philippines, Manila, Philippines Kelley Lee, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK June Leung, Tufts Medical Center, Tufts University, Boston, MA, USA Barry Levy, Adjunct Professor of Public Health at Tufts University School of Medicine; Independent consultant in occupational and environmental health, Boston, USA Khanchit Limpakarnjanarat, Regional Advisor - CSR Unit, Department of Communicable Diseases, World Health Organization, Regional Office for South-East Asia, New Delhi, India Annette Lin Paul J. Lioy, UMDNJ/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences Institute, Piscataway, NJ, USA Alexandra Lo Dak Wai, Solicitor, Hong Kong, and Professional Consultant, School of Law, Chinese University of Hong Kong Donald Lollar, Director, Office on Disability and Health, National Center for Environmental Health Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, Georgia, USA A.D. Lopez, School of Population Health, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia Adetokunbo Lucas, Harvard School of Public Health, MA, USA Russell V. Luepker, Mayo Professor of Public Health, Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, USA Jeff Luck, Associate Professor of Health Services, UCLA School of Public Health, Los Angeles, California, USA Johan P. Mackenbach, Department of Public Health, Erasmus MC, University Medical Centre Rotterdam, The Netherlands Dermot Maher, Medical Officer in the TB Strategy and Operations team, Stop TB Department, WHO Geneva, Switzerland Lindiwe Makubalo, Chief Director in the National Department of Health in Pretoria, South Africa Robyn Martin, Professor of Public Health law, Centre for Research in Primary and Community Care, UK; Visiting Professor of Public Health Law, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Zoe Marshman, Clinical Lecturer in Dental Public Health, The University of Sheffield, UK Jose Martines, Associate Director, Child and Adolescent Health and Development, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland Elizabeth Mason, Director, Child and Adolescent Health and Development, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland C.D. Mathers, Information, Evidence and Research Cluster, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland Di McIntyre, Professor, School of Public Health and Family Medicine, University of Cape Town, South Africa Martin McKee, European Centre on Health of Societies in Transition, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK A. J. McMichael, Professor, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Pierre-Andre Michaud, Chief, Multidisciplinary Unit for Adolescent Health, University Hospital / CHUV, Lausanne, Switzerland Peter Michielsen, University of Antwerp, Belgium Edward Mills, Assistant Professor, Department of Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada Mark R. Montgomery, Professor, Department of Economics, Stony Brook University, NY, USA Gavin Mooney, Director of SPHERe and Professor of Health Economics, Curtin University of Technology, Sydney, Australia Myfanwy Morgan, Health and Social Care Research, King's College London, UK Richard Morrow, Professor, International Health; Health Systems, John Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA William Moss, Associate Professor, Epidemiology; Infectious Diseases, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA Alvaro Munoz, Profesor, Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA C.J.L. Murray, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington, Seattle, USA F. Javier Nieto, Chair, Department of Population Health Sciences, Helfaer Professor of Public Health; Professor of Population Health Sciences and Family Medicine, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, USA D. James Nokes, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Warwick, UK Ellen Nolte, Senior Lecturer, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Diseases, UK Don Nutbeam, Provost and Deputy Vice Chancellor, University of Sydney, Australia Roderico H. Ofrin, Emergency and Humanitarian Action (EHA), Office of Deputy Regional Director, (DRD), WHO SEARO, Nee Delhi, India Jane Ogden, Department of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK Lisa Oldring, Special Advisor to Mary Robinson, GAVI Fund Board of Directors, Geneva, Switzerland Jorn Olsen, Professor and Chair, Department of Epidemiology, UCLA School of Public Health, Los Angeles, California, USA Adrian Ong, Director-General's Office, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland Krishna M. Palipudi, Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, USA Georges C. Patton, Vic Health Professor of Adolescent Health, Centre for Adolescent Health, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia Sarah Payne, Reader in Social Policy, Centre for Health and Social Care, University of Bristol, UK Neil Pearce, Centre for Public Health Research, Massey University Wellington Campus, Wellington, New Zealand Corinne Peek-Asa, University of Iowa, Occupational and Environmental Health, Injury Prevention Research Center, Iowa City, IA, USA John Powell, Health Sciences Research Institute, University of Warwick, UK John Powles, Senior lecturer in public health medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 2SR, UK Deborah Prothrow-Stith, Henry Pickering Walcott Professor of the Practice of Public Health and Associate Dean for Diversity, Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, USA Denis J. Protti, Professor, School of Health Information Science, Unviersity of Victoria, BC, Canada Laura Punnett, Professor, Department of Work Environment, University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA Pekka Puska, Director General of the National Public Health Institute, Finland Mario Raviglione, Director of the Stop TB Department, WHO Geneva, Switzerland K. Srinath Reddy, President, Public Health Foundation, India Margaret Reid, Public Health and Health Policy, University of Glasgow, UK Vivian Robinson, Centre for Global Health, Institute of Population Health, University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Peter G. Robinson, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer University of Rochester Medical Center and Strong Health, New York, USA Robin Room, Professor, Deputy Director of SoRAD, Stockholm University, Sweden Julia Royall, Chief, International Programs, and Project Director, Multilateral Initiative on Malaria Telecommunications Network, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA Jonathan Samet, Professor, Chairman of the Department of Epidemiology; Director of the Institute for Global Tobacco Control; Jacob I and Irene B. Fabrikant Professor in Health, Risk and Society; Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA Rodolfo Saracci, Director of research in epidemiology, IFC-National Research Council, Pisa, Italy Benedetto Saraceno, Director, Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland Jorgen Schlundt, Director of the WHO's Department of Safety, Zoonoses and Foodborne diseases, Geneva, Switzerland Eleanor B. Schron, NHLBI Health Information Center, Bethesda, Maryland, USA John C. Scott, President, Center for Public Service Communications, Arlington, Virginia, USA Than Sein, Director, Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health, World Health Organization, Regional Office for South-East Asia, New Delhi, India Shira Shafir, Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, UCLA, California, USA Prakash S Shetty, Professor of Human Nutrition, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK Daniel Shouval, University Hospital, Jerusalem, Israel Victor Sidel, Distinguished University Professor of Social Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx; Adjunct Professor of Public Health at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City, USA Elliot R. Siegel, Associate Director for Health Information Programs Development, US National Library of Medicine, US National Institutes of Health, US Department of Health and Human Services, Bethesda, MD, USA Chitr Sitthi-Amorn, Dean of the College of Public Health, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, Bangkok Ian Smith, Adviser to the Director-General, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland Orielle Solar, Department of Equity, Poverty, and Social Determinants of Health, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland Frank Sorvillo, Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, UCLA, California, USA Jonathan Sterne, Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology, Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, UK Alison Stewart, Foundation for Genomics and Population Health, Cambridge, UK Allison Streetly, Department of Public Health Sciences, King's College London Steven Sugden, Research Fellow, Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK Patrick S. Sullivan, Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Sheena Sullivan, National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China and Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia Julien O. Teitler, Columbia University, USA Tim Tenbensel, Senior Lecturer, Health Systems, School of Population Health, the University of Auckland, New Zealand Puja Thakker, Research Associate, Public Health Foundation of India Elma B. Torres, Director, Health Safety and Environmental Management Consultancy Services, Inc., Manila, Philippines Peter Tugwell, Professor of Medicine, and Epidemiology & Community Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Kumnuan Ungchusak, Director, Bureau of Epidemiology, Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Public Health, Nonthaburi, Thailand Nigel Unwin, Institute of Health and Society, Newcastle University, UK Pierre van Damme, Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, University of Antwerp, Belgium Koen Van Herck, Centre for the Evaluation of Vaccination, University of Antwerp, Belgium Erkki Vartiainen, Director, Department of Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention, Finland Jeanette Vega, Director, Department of Equity, Poverty, and Social Determinants of Health, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland Gemma Vestal, Liaison Officer for the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, Geneva, Switzerland Paolo Vineis, Chair in Environmental Epidemiology, Imperial College London, UK Suwit Wibulpolprasert, Office of Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Public Health, Thailand Hester Ward, UK CJD Surveillance Unit, Edinburgh, UK Noel S. Weiss, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, USA Gail Williams, Professor, School of Population Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia Marilyn Wise, School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Australia Fred B. Wood, Computer Scientist, Office of Health Information Programs Development, National Library of Medicine, USA Zunyou Wu, Director, National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, China Gonghuan Yang, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, China Ron Zimmern, Foundation for Genomics and Population Health, Cambridge, UK Paul Zimmet, International Diabetes Institute, Melbourne, Australia Anthony B. Zwi, Professor, Public Health & Community Medicine, School of Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia