Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, Department of Primary Care, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

wilson work life began 1969 when she was involved in a project building one of the earliest perinatal databases at Hammersmith Hospital as part of a project on premature birth and associated morbidity and mortality. Research funding becoming very scarce in the 70’s she joined local government in London – completely different from medical research, but providing a firm grounding in public service. After moving to Worcestershire Sally returned to NHS/academia, working at the Cancer Epidemiology Research Unit at the West Midlands Cancer Registry. From there, she worked at the West Midlands Regional Perinatal Audit, engaged in conducting confidential enquiries and, notably, producing the patient held pregnancy record. Then to the other end of the scale, she worked on the WM Geriatric Audit project. When medical audit lost impetus in the 90’s she returned to local government in Hereford and Worcestershire County Council as information and quality systems administration manager for the Trading Standards Service, a senior officer playing a part in gaining both quality system accreditation and investor in people status. Sally is a Londoner and life long QPR supporter and has been fortunate to work with some eminent, thoroughly likeable people from across the globe throughout her career.

black and minority ethnic groups, data collection, ethnicity, monitoring, profiling