Gabriel Leung is Professor and Head, having returned to the University after serving in Government as Hong Kong's first Under Secretary for Food and Health and fifth Director of the Chief Executive's Office during 2008-12. He first joined HKU in 1999 and in 2006 became one of the youngest tenured professors in the history of the University.

Leung's research expertise spans a wide spectrum of the public health sciences. He established and directed the School's Infectious Disease Epidemiology Group since the time of the SARS epidemic in 2003. Current priorities focus on field studies and modelling of influenza, hand-foot-and-mouth disease, human papilloma virus and other infections of public health significance. He was instrumental in reviving the “Children of 1997” birth cohort, consisting of 88% of all local births in April and May 1997, that provides unique insights into the contextual life course epidemiology of a rapidly transitioned population and its implications for complex chronic conditions in later life. He has also pioneered the development of cost-effectiveness, health systems, financing and policy research in Hong Kong and around the region. From 2010, he has served as inaugural Chair of the Asia Pacific Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, a multipartite partnership of governments, development agencies and the research community.

Leung maintains a substantial teaching commitment in the undergraduate medical and postgraduate public health curricula. His teaching has been recognised by the award of the University Teaching Fellowship and the Faculty Teaching Medal. He has mentored 13 PhD and 4 MPhil research postgraduates.

He is an honorary consultant in family medicine and primary care of the Hospital Authority and attends a weekly clinic. 

Extramurally Leung has served as advisor to various national and international agencies including the World Health Organisation, World Bank and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. He was Vice President and Censor in Public Health Medicine of the Hong Kong College of Community Medicine. He is an adjunct professor of the University of Pennsylvania and adjunct professorial researcher of the China National Health Development Research Center. He co-edits the Journal of Public Health and serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, BMC Public Health and BMC Health Services Research. 

CMED6201 Principles of Public Health
CMED6900 Health Policy and Politics
CMED6903 Resources for Health

Infectious disease epidemiology (of directly transmissible respiratory pathogens)

Leung GM, Nicoll A. Reflections on pandemic (H1N1) 2009 and the international response. PLoS Med. 2010;7(10):e1000346.  

Lipsitch M, Hayden FG, Cowling BJ, Leung GM. How to maintain surveillance for novel influenza A H1N1 when there are too many cases to count.  Lancet. 2009; 374: 1209–11. 

Wu JT, Riley S, Fraser C, Leung GM.  Reducing the impact of the next influenza pandemic using household-based public health interventions.  PLoS Med.  2006;3:e361.

Cowling BJ, Chan KH, Fang VJ, Cheng CKY, Fung ROP,  Wai W, Sin J, Seto WH, Yung R, Chu DWS, Chiu BCF, Lee PWY, Chiu MC, Lee HC, Uyeki TM, Houck PM, Peiris JSM, Leung GM.  Face masks and hand hygiene to prevent influenza transmission in households: a cluster randomized, controlled trial. Ann Intern Med. 2009;151:437-446.

Cowling BJ, Ng S, Ma ESK, Cheng CKY, Wai W, Fang VJ, Chan KH, Ip DKM, Chiu SS, Peiris JSM, Leung GM. Protective efficacy of seasonal influenza vaccination against seasonal and pandemic influenza virus infection during 2009 in Hong Kong. Clin Infect Dis.  2010;51:1370-9. 

Leung GM, Hedley AJ, Ho LM, Chau P, Wong IOL, Thach TQ, Ghani AC, Donnelly CA, Fraser C, Riley S, Ferguson NM, Anderson RM, Tsang T, Leung PY, V Wong, J Chan, Lo SV, Lam TH.  The epidemiology of severe acute respiratory syndrome in the 2003 Hong Kong epidemic: analysis of all 1,755 patients.  Ann Intern Med.  2004;141:662-73. 

Leung GM, Rainer TH, Lau FL, Wong IOL, Tong A, Wong TW, Kong J, Hedley AJ, Lam TH for Hospital Authority SARS Collaborative Group. A clinical prediction rule for diagnosing severe acute respiratory syndrome in the emergency department.  Ann Intern Med.  2004;141:333-42. 

Lifestyle and lifecourse epidemiology

Schooling CM, Hui LL, Ho LM, Lam TH, Leung GM. Cohort profile: “Children of 1997”: a Hong Kong Chinese birth cohort. Int J Epidemiol. 2011. (in press)

Jiang CQ, Thomas GN, Lam TH, Schooling CM, Zhang WS, Lao XQ, Liu B, Adab P, Leung GM, Cheng KK.  Cohort profile: The Guangzhou Biobank Cohort Study, a Guangzhou-Hong Kong-Birmingham collaboration.  Int J Epidemiol.  2006; 35:844-52. 

Schooling CM, Leung GM. A socio-biological explanation for social disparities in non-communicable chronic diseases – the product of history?  J Epidemiol Commun H. 2010;64:941-949. 

Chung RY, Schooling CM, Cowling BJ, Leung GM. How does socioeconomic development affect risk of mortality?  An age-period-cohort analysis from a recently transitioned population in China. Am J Epidemiol. 2010;171:345-56. 

Schooling CM, Jiang CQ, Zhang WS, Cheng KK, Lam TH, Leung GM.  Life course origins of social inequalities in metabolic risk in the population of a developing country.  Am J Epidemiol.  2008; 167(4):419-28  

Schooling CM, Lam TH, Li ZB, Ho SY, Chan WM, Ho KS, Tham MK, Cowling BJ, Leung GM.  Obesity, physical activity and mortality in a prospective Chinese elderly cohort.  Arch Intern Med.  2006;166:1498-1504. 

Leung GM, Ho LM, Tin KYK, Schooling CM, Lam TH. Health care consequences of cesarean birth during the first 18 months of life: the 1997 Hong Kong Birth Cohort.  Epidemiology.  2007;18(4):479-484. 

Leung GM, Lam TH, Ho LM, Lau YL. Health consequences of breastfeeding: doctors’ visits and hospitalisations during the first 18 months of life in Hong Kong Chinese infants.  Epidemiology.  2005;16:328-35.  

Breast and cervical cancer epidemiology

Wong IOL, Tsang JWH, Cowling BJ, Leung GM.  Optimising resource allocation for breast cancer prevention and care among Hong Kong Chinese women.  Cancer. 2012. (in press)     

Wong IOL, Kuntz KM, Cowling BJ, Lam CLK, Leung GM.  Cost-effectiveness of mammography screening for Chinese women.  Cancer.  2007;110:885-95.  

Woo PPS, Kim J, Leung GM.  What is the most cost-effective population-based cancer screening package for Chinese women?  J Clin Oncol.  2007;25(6):617-24. 

Leung GM, Woo PPS, McGhee SM, Cheung ANY, Fan S, Mang O, Thach TQ, Ngan HYS.  Age-period-cohort analysis of cervical cancer incidence in Hong Kong from 1972 to 2001 using maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods.  J Epidemiol Comm Health.  2006;60:712-20.

Leung GM, Thach TQ, Lam TH, Hedley AJ, Foo W, Fielding R, Yip PSF, Lau EMC, Wong CM.  Trends in breast cancer incidence in Hong Kong between 1973 and 1999: an age-period-cohort analysis.  Br J Cancer.  2002;87:982-8. 

Leung GM, Lam TH, Thach TQ, Hedley AJ. Will screening mammography in the East do more harm than good? Am J Public Health.  2002;92:1841-6.

Health services and policy research

Leung GM, Bacon-Shone J (eds).  Hong Kong’s health system – reflections, perspectives and visions.  Hong Kong:Hong Kong University Press;2006. (568 pp.)  ISBN 962-209-804-5. Paperback edition; 2012.  ISBN 978-988-8139-55-2. 

Leung GM, Wagstaff A, Lindelow M, Lu JR.  Health systems of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.  In Heggenhougen HK and Quah S (eds.) International encyclopedia of public health. Vol. 1.  San Diego:Academic Press;2008:656-71. 

Wong IOL, Lindner MJ, Cowling BJ, Lau EHY, Lo SV, Leung GM. Measuring moral hazard and adverse selection by propensity scoring in the mixed health care economy of Hong Kong.  Health Policy.  2010;95:24-35. 

Chung RY, Tin KYK, Cowling BJ, Chan KP, Chan WM, Lo SV, Leung GM. Long-term care cost drivers and expenditure projection to 2036 in Hong Kong. BMC Health Serv Res. 2009;9:172

Wong IOL, Cowling BJ, Lo SV, Leung GM.  A multilevel analysis of the effects of neighbourhood income inequality on individual self-rated health in Hong Kong.  Soc Sci Med.  2009;68:124-132 

Leung GM, Tin KYK, O’Donnell O.  Redistribution or horizontal equity in Hong Kong’s mixed public-private system: a policy conundrum.  Health Econ.  2009;18:37-54.

Leung GM, Tin KYK, Chan WS.  Hong Kong’s health spending projections through 2033.  Health Policy.  2007;81:93-101. 

Leung GM, Wong IOL, Chan WS, Choi S, Lo SV on behalf of the Health Care Financing Study Group.  The ecology of health care in Hong Kong.  Soc Sci Med.  2005;61:577-90. 

Leung GM, Castan-Cameo S, McGhee SM, Wong IOL, Johnston JM.  Waiting time, doctor-shopping and non-attendance at specialist outpatient clinics: case-control study of 6,495 individuals in Hong Kong.  Med Care.  2003;41:1293-300.