Ruth Malone, Editor in Chief

Indonesia is one of the world’s most difficult places to do tobacco control, with a strong tobacco industry presence and a lot of political resistance from tobacco growers and their allies. Huge tobacco billboards are everywhere in the city of Jakarta. Yet, as we discovered on a recent visit, tobacco control advocates and researchers there are doing great work of global importance.

Commissioning editor for Low and Middle Income Countries Simon Chapman and I conducted a workshop in Jakarta aimed at encouraging more publications from low and middle income countries and enthusiasm ran high. Hosted by the Faculty of Public Health at University of Jakarta and coordinated by Mary Assunta, Director, International Tobacco Control Project, Cancer Council Australia, the workshop focused on bringing great ideas to fruition as journal articles, so that lessons learned in Indonesia can help other countries faced with similar political challenges.

The Indonesian workshop participants.