Over half the deaths from disease in the world are now due to just four chronic conditions – diabetes, lung diseases, some cancers and heart disease. Health and education are inextricably linked. Developing and delivering effective, scalable and sustainable education programs which lead to real behavioral change would influence some of the common risk factors for these diseases, such as smoking, poor diet and lack of physical activity.  This book contains the selected papers from the St. Jude Cure4Kids Global Summit, held in June, 2011 at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, USA. The aim of this three-day conference was to improve health and science education in classrooms and communities around the world. Leading educators, innovators and pioneers in the field of public health came together in a multidisciplinary forum to explore examples of successful education programs, analyze the challenges in designing effective, scalable and cost-efficient public health education programs and identify strategies, methodologies and incentives for developing future programs capable of yielding large-scale improvements in health outcomes for diverse communities.  The papers presented here provide a foundation in the key topics necessary to create future innovative health promotion programs, and will be of interest to all those whose work involves improving health outcomes by means of better and more effective health education.

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People-centered health care systems aim to empower people with their health care decisions, make information more accessible, and enable more autonomy. The goal is to promote well-being as much as to treat disease, and to create more collaboration between providers, patients, and their families, thus reducing costs and improving health outcomes. Throughout the world growing populations and rising costs are challenging health care systems. In numerous countries, health care providers are unable to meet the needs of many individuals and groups due to limited budgets, time, and staff. An aging population and rapidly increasing rates of chronic diseases could overwhelm most health care systems. While information and communication technologies can connect health care providers with each other and the consumers they serve, there is no group, organization, or government that has successfully overcome the roadblocks to implementing a wide people-centered health system. Ideally, such a system would put the needs of the public first, enable individuals to take greater responsibility for managing their own health and health services, and promote optimal levels of health and resource utilization. In this paper, we explore a vision for future people-centered health care systems that could provide better access to information and decision-making tools for patients, health care providers, and the general public. We also examine key challenges to creating such systems.