John Beard, MBBS, PhD, World Health Organization (Switzerland).

Dr. Beard is the new Director of the Department of Ageing and Life Course at the World Health Organization. Prior to January, 2009 when he assumed his current position, he practiced medicine as a primary care physician in his home country of Australia and spent several years as medical officer for an Aboriginal Medical Service. From 1991, he held a wide range of senior public health and academic positions in Australia, followed by three years as Senior Epidemiologist at the New York Academy of Medicine. Dr. Beard’s involvement in the health of older persons began during his time as a clinician. Later, he was instrumental in the establishment of Stay on Your Feet, one of Australia's first and largest falls prevention programs and he was a founding investigator for 45 and Up, an ongoing Australian longitudinal study of 250,000 older adults. While in New York his research focused on urban health, demonstrating a clear link between the urban environment and derpression, disability and obesity in older persons and he was actively involved in the Age-friendly Cities project.