Mark Booth is a 2006–07 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy at Brown University.  He is working with Professor Vince Mor on a research prject titled:  Analysis of the health care policy responses to population ageing in New Zealand and the UK.  In New Zealand Mark is a manager within the Sector Policy Directorate of the New Zealand Ministry of Health. He has responsibility for the provision of strategic policy advice to the Minister of Health on health funding issues, therapeutics and social policy. Prior to moving to New Zealand in 1999, he lived and worked in the U.K. He was a research student in health economics at the University of Manchester and a research fellow at the Centre for Health Economics at the University of York. Following this he spent a number of years working for the NHS both as a manager and as a private sector management consultant. He has had publications in a number of journals and books and has particular interests in health funding, prioritization issues and health needs assessment. He holds a master's degree in economics from the University of Manchester; an executive master's degree in public administration from the Australian and New Zealand School of Government and a diploma in public health from the University of Otago in New Zealand.