Hosted by the Hanoi School of Public Health and funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies, an authors’ workshop for the Second Lancet Southeast Asia Health Series was conducted in Hoi An, Vietnam on October 8-9, 2009.

Moderated by Vice-Dean Tran Huu Bich and later joined by Dean Le Vu Anh, the workshop opened with welcoming comments by Ariel Pablos-Mendez of the Rockefeller Foundation, Bill Summerskill of The Lancet, Le Nhan Phuong of the Atlantic Philanthropies, and CMB Trustee Jane Henney. Altogether, 35 participants attended this meeting at which lead authorship teams presented outlines of six theme papers seeking suggestions for paper improvements. In addition to the authors and sponsors, the workshop was also attended by the Series’ Regional Steering Committee (Suwit Wibulpolprasert of Thailand, Khor Geok Lin of Malaysia, and Jose Acuin of the Philippines) and Scientific Advisory Group (Abbas Bhuiya of Bangladesh, Ruth Bonita of New Zealand, Virasakdi Chongsuvivatwong of Thailand, Phua Kai Hong of Singapore, Tomas Palu based in Vietnam, and Kenji Shibuya of Japan).

The Lancet Southeast Asia Series was launched in May 2009 at a regional consultation hosted by the China Medical Board, the Rockefeller Foundation, and The Lancet in Bangkok. The goals of the Series are to present the regional health situation to global health audiences as well as to highlight priority health challenges in the region. Teams of regional authors will work on drafting research papers throughout 2010, aiming for publication and launch of the Series in January 2011. The next authors’ workshop is scheduled for Indonesia on February 22-23, 2010.