Sincerely,

Li Li (), MD, PhD, FAAFP

Overview

Sincerely,

I am delighted to present to our readers this issue of Family Medicine and Community Health with a thematic focus entitled'Global perspective, cancer and primary care.' This issue has been coordinated in collaboration with the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health and Swetland Center for Environmental Health at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland,Ohio, USA.

Cancer is now considered a chronic disease that has touched all walks of life across countries and populations. A global perspective and coordinated efforts are needed in our war against cancer, where primary care is at the forefront – from risk reduction to survivorship along the cancer care continuum. The articles published in this issue of the Family Medicine and Community Health cover issues related to cancer screening, treatment, survivorship, access to care, and global health. Two additional articles reflect on family medicine as a developing discipline in China, which shall be of broad interest to our global readership.

I hope our readers will find these articles provocative and informative.

Li Li, MD, PhD, is Professor of Family Medicine, Epidemiology, and Biostatistics, and Mary Ann Swetland Endowed Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and Director of Swetland Center for Environmental Health at Case Western Reserve University. He is also an attending physician in family medicine at University Hospitals Case Medical Center. He is an internationally known cancer epidemiologist with research focuses on gene-environment interaction, energy imbalance and colon carcinogenesis, screening and early detection of colon neoplasia, and risk prediction modeling in breast cancer.He is the principal investigator for multiple NIH research grants and has contributed significantly to a number of large multi-investigator efforts, such as the Case Center for Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer (TREC) program and the Case GI Specialized Program of Research Excellence(SPORE). He is also Associate Director for Prevention Research at Case Comprehensive Cancer Center,overseeing population research that cuts across all aspects of translational cancer research, ranging from epidemiology, psychosocial and behavioral sciences, genomics, and biomarker discovery and validation to the application of novel discoveries from both wet and dry laboratories to screening and early detection, prevention, and intervention. He is the founding director of the Clinical Translational Science PhD program at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.