David McCoy is the Evidence to Policy Research Lead at the United Nations University’s International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH) based in Malaysia. Prior to this he was Professor of Global Public Health at Queen Mary University London, and before that he was Director of Medact, a UK-based global health charity that grew out of the medical peace movement of the 1950s and 1960s. He has spent many years as a public health practitioner both in the UK and in South Africa where he worked for the Health Systems Trust supporting the post-apartheid transformation of the health system. He practised as a medical doctor in both the UK and South Africa, before moving into public health. He has a Masters from the University of Cape Town and a doctorate from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He initiated and co-managed the publication of the first two Global Health Watch books (also known as alternative world health reports) and is a former trustee and current advisor to the Centre for Health in the Public Interest, an independent think tank promoting a vision of health and social care based on accountability and the public interest in the UK.