The origins of this book lay in a decision taken in 1998 by members of the Health Policy Unit at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to collaborate on a joint academic project. Members of the Unit, as in other academic institutions, focus their attention on advancing their own and collective research agendas, pursuing those for which research funding is available while seeking funding to move forward their other research interests. In such focused and competitive environments, the potential for broader collective academic activity and debate, and for more creative and searching exploration of important issues, tends to suffer.

The Health Policy Unit at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine hosts around thirty members of staff and a similar number of doctoral students. The Unit seeks to inform and strengthen the development and implementation of appropriate health policy and to increase understanding of the process of policy development at global, national and local levels. Areas of expertise include comparative health policy and health systems analysis, health economics and international public health. While many Unit members have a particular interest in the challenges facing low- and middle-income countries, the Unit is increasingly cognisant of the interconnectedness between developments in different parts of the world. Staff come from disciplines ranging from sociology, social policy and political science, to anthropology, health economics, public health and epidemiology.