Gan Quan, PhD, is Senior Vice President at Vital Strategies, where he leads the Tobacco Control Division, comprising a global team working with governments and civil society partners around the world to reduce tobacco use, the leading preventive cause of deaths worldwide. The Division has supported work in more than 50 low- and middle-income countries with a focus on evidence-based tobacco control policies and implementation, capacity building, and countering interference from the tobacco industry.
Gan Quan has more than 15 years of international experience in health system building, policy implementation, government partnership, and policy research. Prior to joining Vital Strategies, Gan Quan spent 14 years with the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union), first as Technical Advisor, then Director of China Office, and most recently as Director of Tobacco Control Department. Before joining The Union, Gan Quan was a research fellow at the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at University of California, San Francisco.
Born and raised in China, Gan Quan received his public health training at the School of Public Health at University of California, Berkeley, where he holds a PhD and an MS degree in Environmental Health Sciences. He also earned a BS degree in Environmental Sciences from Nankai University.