From the Editors

Dear Colleagues,

The current issue of the Journal of Health Inequalities concludes the series of contributions connected with the Calisia World Conference on Family Health, which took place on 9-10 June 2019 in Kalisz, Poland. We would like to particularly turn the attention of our readers to a paper by leading researchers of the effect of air pollution on human health, Prof. Jonathan Samet and Meghan Burke from the Colorado School of Public Health, Aurora, United States (see article: The burden of avoidable disease from air pollution: implications for prevention on pages 2-6). In their article the authors estimate the size and impact of this risk factor on health in Poland. This is one of the first science-and- evidence based publications attempting to holistically estimate the health toll of air pollution in Poland, and to contextualise it against smoking harm. Fortunately, not all of their conclusions are negative. The authors point out that in the last 30 years the exposure of Poles to tobacco smoke (active and passive smoking) has significantly decreased, and the exposure to communal air pollution has slightly decreased. However, the article shows that these factors remain among the most significant contributors to premature mortality and low life expectancy in Poland. The editors of the Journal would like to invite the scholarly community to submit their comments and reactions to this publication. Other publications in this issue, among others, include an analysis of data from the Global Youth Tobacco Survey on waterpipe use among youth in countries of the Eastern Mediterranean region (see article: Youth knowledge and attitudes towards cigarette and waterpipe use in nine Eastern Mediterranean countries on pages 11-20); an exploration of nutritional habits and profiles of patients qualified for bariatric surgery (see articles: Profiles of patients qualified for bariatric surgeries with Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy methods on pages 40-47, and Nutritional habits and lifestyle of patients qualified for Roux-en-Y gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy bariatric surgery on pages 48-54); a description of the global burden of prostate cancer (pages: 63-74); and a look at the ethnic disparities in parity and child mortality in Nigeria (pages: 55-62).
Once again, we would like to thank all authors and collaborators who contributed to the current issue of the Journal.

Witold A. Zatoński, Andrzej Wojtyła