Tom Abernathy, PhD is Director of the Central West Health Planning Information Network (CWHPIN), one of five Health Intelligence Units funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.  He is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster University and the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Toronto. He brings expertise in evaluations of health system performance, exploring the relationship between social policy and individual behaviour, and the relationship between social structure and health.  Among his activities are evaluations of a provincial Palliative Care Pilot Program, the federal Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) smoking prevention program, a provincial needle-exchange HIV/AIDS prevention program, and the Ontario Tobacco Control Act. Recently he assisted the Ministry in the evaluation both of Primary Care Reform and the Healthy Babies / Healthy Children program. Dr. Abernathy will focus on the economic aspects of the investigation along with Dr. Gafni.