The school has a long history of tobacco control and advocacy and related research that has achieved international recognition. In 2005, in collaboration with Oxford University and the Department of Health, we were the first in the world to report a dose-response relationship between the risk of death from stroke and exposure to second-hand smoke (published in the British Medical Journal). This study provided critical support for legislation
on smoke-free policies in the workplace.

In 2000, we jointly established with the Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health the first public sector Smoking Cessation Clinic, which provided a model for further large-scale treatment strategies, and the first telephone Quitline, with papers published in the Journal of Public Health (2004), Tobacco Control (2004) and Psychopharmacology (2005). In 2001, we published in the British Medical Journal the first study on smoking and mortality in Hong Kong, which showed that smoking killed 5,720 people in 1998. In 1994, the Department published in the British Medical Journal the first report on passive smoking at work as a risk factor in coronary heart disease, the first study on youth smoking in Hong Kong, which demonstrated respiratory symptoms due to active and passive smoking (published in the International Journal of Epidemiology) and the first randomised controlled trial of a smoking cessation intervention programme in Hong Kong, with the results presented at the 10th World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Beijing in 1997. Since 1997, when the first birth cohort study in Hong Kong was carried out, eight papers on passive smoking, breast feeding and health service utilisation have been published in Paediatrics, Birth, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Archives of Disease in Childhood, Social Science and Medicine, Epidemiology,
the Archives of Paediatric and Adolescent Medicine and other journals.

The School played a key role in supporting the Government in its response to the 2003 SARS crisis. This included the creation of the first fully comprehensive, integrated database for SARS in Hong Kong and then in Asia (collaborative research was undertaken with Imperial College, the Department of Health, the Hospital Authority, the Health, Welfare and Food Bureau and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, with papers published in Science, The Lancet and the Annals of Internal Medicine), which furthered our understanding of the psycho-behavioural responses by communities to the epidemic (Journal of Epidemiology
and Community Health, Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology).

We are also active in other areas of infectious disease epidemiology and research, and with the Department of Microbiology, were the first to report on mortality due to influenza in regions with a warm climate (published in Clinical Infectious Diseases). More recently, our landmark paper on public health intervention against pandemic influenza, published in PLoS Medicine, was one of only four key papers cited by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in their preparedness plan. During the influenza seasons of 2007 and 2008, we will be studying non-pharmacological interventions against seasonal influenza in a large, US
CDC-funded randomised controlled trial.

he School has a long history of research into environmental pollutants. In 2002, we were the first in the world to demonstrate the independent effects of air pollutants on deaths from cardiopulmonary disease and the benefits of interventions (reported in The Lancet). Also in 2002, we jointly reported the first study in Hong Kong on dioxins and PCBs in breast milk with the Departments of Paediatrics and Community Medicine at the Chinese University of
Hong Kong in a World Health Organization collaborative study.

We initiated the first local development and maintenance programme in health financing for Hong Kong's Domestic Health Accounts for the Government’s Health, Welfare and Food Bureau (HWFB). The research team was also engaged by the HWFB to conduct specific studies to assist it in its policy-making process. The School pioneered health economics studies, with a paper on the economics of shared-care published in Pharmacoeconomics in 1996, has actively promoted health services research studies and was instrumental in the establishment of the Government's Health Services Research Fund in 1993 (Professor AJ Hedley was appointed Chairman of the Expert Committee on Grant Applications and Awards). Professor TH Lam, as co-chair of the Grant Review Board of the Research Council, continues this tradition. In 2001, we undertook the largest case-control study to evaluate the impact of waiting times and ‘doctor-shopping’ on specialist outpatient services (published in Medical Care). Other research in this area has focused on the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of breast and cervical cancer screening in Chinese populations and the extent of health informatics penetration in Hong Kong, and we have linked up with the Massachusetts Medical Society for a collaborative study. Other research has focused on the impact of health risks on chronic disease, healthy ageing and the future impact on health
care systems of current demographic and behaviour patterns.

Professor R Fielding and Dr W Lam established the Centre for Psycho-Oncological Research and Teaching, which supports breast cancer research in a Chinese population, with papers published in Psycho-oncology (2003), Breast Cancer Research and Treatment (2003) and
Cancer (2004 and 2005).

Several studies on breast cancer epidemiology were completed in 2000, including the first paper on screening mammography in Asia, which was published in the American Journal of Public Health, and a paper on trends and age-period-cohort analysis, which was published in the British Journal of Cancer. The results of these studies provided the evidential basis for recommendations on breast cancer screening for the Department of Health Report of the
Cancer Expert Working Group on Cancer Prevention and Screening.

In 2003, Professor GM Leung and Dr JM Johnston were the first in the world to demonstrate the effectiveness of computer-assisted clinical decision support in student learning and the first to report a randomised controlled trial in medical education in Hong Kong, with papers published in the British Medical Journal and Medical Education. The Department has been instrumental in the development and assessment of a problem-based undergraduate
curriculum.