The Oxford Health Alliance: a risky business?

Colagiuri, Ruth; Pramming, Stig; Leeder, Stephen R

doi:10.5694/j.1326-5377.2007.tb01461.x

Topics

The Alliance continues to tackle the problem of chronic disease by bringing the right people together

With its self-described goal of “confronting the epidemic of chronic diseases”, the Oxford Health Alliance aims to fill the leadership void decried by Beaglehole and Yach,1 the Lancet2 and others. To this end, the Alliance enlists key thinkers and doers, to harness, shape and amplify the energy that is converging worldwide, to address socially and environmentally generated determinants of chronic diseases. It concentrates on high-level approaches, through government and industry, to tobacco control, physical inactivity and unhealthy diets. These, via chronic illness, are responsible for over 50% of the world’s mortality.3 Two years after the launch of the Oxford Health Alliance’s Asia Pacific Regional Centre,4 it is timely to review its progress.

1 Australian Health Policy Institute, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW.
2 School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW.
3 Oxford Health Alliance Asia Pacific Regional Centre, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW.
4 Oxford Health Alliance, London, UK.
5 Oxford University, Oxford, UK.

Correspondence: rcolagiuri@med.usyd.edu.au

1. Beaglehole R, Yach D. Globalisation and the prevention and control of non-communicable disease: the neglected chronic diseases of adults. Lancet 2003; 362: 903-908.
2. The catastrophic failures of public health [editorial]. Lancet 2004; 363: 745.
3. World Health Organization. Preventing chronic diseases: a vital investment. WHO global report. Geneva: WHO, 2005. http://www.who.int/chp/chronic_disease_report/en/index.html (accessed Oct 2007).
4. Leeder SR, Colagiuri R. The Oxford Health Alliance: old problems, new approaches. Med J Aust 2006; 184: 148-149. <MJA full text>

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