Bruce Bartholow Duncan is a Professor of Social Medicine and of the Post-Graduate Program in Epidemiology at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul. He graduated from Williams College (BA, 1971) and Johns Hopkins University (MD, 1979). He obtained a master´s degree in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University (MPH, 1979) and a doctorate in Medicine: Internal Medicine from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (PhD, 1991). He completed residencies in internal medicine (1979) and preventive medicine (1982) at North Carolina Memorial Hospital and a post-doctoral fellowship in Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina (1993). As an epidemiologist, he focuses on: 1) diabetes mellitus, obesity, and other risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, 2) evidence-based medicine, and 3) primary health care. He is a member of the American College of Physicians, the American Diabetes Association, the Brazilian and International Epidemiology Associations and the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.