Cecilia Hegamin-Younger, PhD is professor of biostatistics at St George's University Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Grenada, the West Indies and a faculty mentor at the University of Michigan Office of Public Health Practice and the University of Illinois, Department of Public Health, United States. Dr Hegamin-Younger is a liaison with the Drug Control Secretariat of Grenada and the Inter-American Drug Control Commission. Her current research focuses on drug epidemiology, gender issues and child abuse. Joav Merrick, MD, MMedSci, DMSc, born and educated in Denmark is professor of pediatrics, child health and human development, Division of Pediatrics, Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center, Mt Scopus Campus, Jerusalem, Israel and Kentucky Children's Hospital, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky United States and professor of public health at the Center for Healthy Development, School of Public Health, Georgia State University, Atlanta, United States, the medical director of the Health Services, Division for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services, Jerusalem, the founder and director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Israel.