Professor Jin Ling TANG joined the Department of Community and Family Medicine of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1995. He qualified as a public health doctor in Peking University Medical School (formerly Beijing Medical University) and was later awarded, by the Chinese Ministry of Education, the Sino-British Friendship Scholarship for reading for a PhD in the United Kingdom. He obtained his Master of Science degree in epidemiology in London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and PhD in the University of London, and received post-doctoral training in the University of Oxford. He was awarded in 2002 Cheung Kong Scholars Professor of Peking University by the Ministry of Education and Li Ka Shing Foundation.

Professor Tang is a trained epidemiologist and has a major interest in evidence-based healthcare, traditional Chinese medicine, systematic reviews and critical appraisal of medical evidence. He heads the Hong Kong Cochrane Branch of the Cochrane Collaboration and is the Chairman of the Asia Pacific Network for Evidence-Based Medicine. He is con-currently appointed the Chairman of Peking University National 211 Project Committee for Evidence-Based Medicine and heads Peking University Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine and Clinical Research. He is a member of the Chinese National Committee for Health Risk Management and also a guest professor of the Chinese Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences and Sun Yat-Sen University and consultant scientist of the People’s Hospital of Guang Dong Province.

Professor Tang serves as an editorial board member of medical journals including British Medical Journal-Chinese Edition and Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine. He proposed the efficacy driven approach to research and development in traditional Chinese medicine to the Legislative Council of the Hong Kong Government and was invited to speak on the topic at the World Economic Forum 2001 China Business Summit. He co-authored Evidence-Based Decision Making in Healthcare with Sir Muir Gray of the University of Oxford and was the co-editor of the Chinese version of the BMJ Clinical Evidence. His major research interests include systematic reviews and meta-analysis, evidence-based medicine and evidence-based healthcare, clinical evaluation of traditional Chinese Medicine, primary prevention of cardiovascular disease, tobacco smoking and health, clinical trials, evaluation of diagnosis, and epidemiology. He has supervised ten PhD students and over twenty MPH/MSc students.

• Systematic reviews and meta-analysis
• Evidence-based medicine & evidence-based healthcare
• Clinical research in efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine
• Primary prevention of cardiovascular disease
• Clinical research on prognosis, diagnosis and efficacy

Tang JL, Law M, Wald NJ.  How effective is nicotine replacement therapy in helping people to stop smoking. BMJ 1994; 308