New Public Health research in Ukraine and other countries

This issue of the journal Tobacco Control and Public Health in Eastern Europe (TCPHEE) covers studies presented at the Second conference ‘Economics, Sociology, Theory, and Practice of Public Health’. Compared to the content of the same conference last year (Andreeva 2011), in 2012, wider range of participants took part in the conference, both geographically and institutionally.The presented materials are partly concentrated around particular health outcomes, including mortality (Krasovsky 2012; Tigova et al. 2012), some diseases, mostly infectious ones, such as tuberculosis (Baranovska and Doroshenko 2012; Besieda and Semigina 2012) and HIV-infection (Dumchev et al. 2012; Klymenko and Semigina 2012; Shulga 2012; Vasylyeva et al. 2012b; Zhabenko and Zhabenko 2012) and some of the non-communicable diseases including diabetes (Bondarenko and Danyliv 2012) and cancers (Fomenko and Stepurko 2012; Khryshchuk 2012).The presented studies also discuss those determinants of health which contribute to the existing disease burden including structural factors on macro-level related to health policies (Besieda and Semigina 2012; Klymenko and Semigina 2012; Krasovsky 2012; Semigina 2012; Tigova et al. 2012) and health systems (Akbirov 2012; Fomenko and Stepurko 2012; Melnyk et al. 2012; Raminashvili et al. 2012; Salo and Yakovlev 2012b, a; Zenchenko et al. 2012; Kozlova and Gryga 2012). Two papers are devoted to the attitudes and perceptions of health workers in particular (Kozlova and Gryga 2012; Zhabenko and Zhabenko 2012). One study has analyzed the quality of reported clinical trials of a particular group of medicines (Akbirov 2012). Three studies are related to the reforms of health systems (Raminashvili et al. 2012; Salo and Yakovlev 2012b, a). Four studies are related to payments and other financial issues (Baranovska and Doroshenko 2012; Bondarenko and Danyliv 2012; Fomenko and Stepurko 2012; Melnyk et al. 2012). Another group of studies focuses on individual determinants of health including such health-related behaviors as eating (Chagarna and Andreeva 2012b, a; Pravosud et al. 2012) and use of alcohol, with two studies devoted to familial factors of alcohol use (Iakunchykova et al. 2012a; Kulagina et al. 2012) and two to economic mechanisms behind the changes in alcohol consumption (Krasovsky 2012; Tigova et al. 2012). Studies related to tobacco consider developmental factors of smoking initiation (Iakunchykova et al. 2012b), waterpipe smoking by university students in different countries (Andreeva 2012a), compliance with smoke-free policies requirements in