# Ruth Bonita

Ruth Bonita, also known as Ruth Bonita Beaglehole, ONZM is an Australian–New Zealand academic, and is an emeritus professor at the University of Auckland, specialising in stroke. In 2006 she was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to medicine. She is also an Honorary Doctor of Medicine at Umea University.

## Academic career

Bonita was born and grew up in New South Wales, where her father was the head of a mining rescue service. In 1966 she met Robert Beaglehole on a boat to China, and they married the following year. The couple went to London together in 1970, where Beaglehole trained at Guys and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and then to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where Bonita earned a Masters in Public Health. Bonita then joined the faculty of the University of Auckland. As a research fellow, she became interested in the causes and prevention of strokes, on which there was little research at the time. She led the Auckland Regional Coronary or Stroke (ARCOS) study, which began in 1980. The two-year ARCOS study then became part of the MONICA project (Monitoring the Trends and Determinants of Cardiovascular Disease), a longer-term international multicentre project led by the World Health Organisation. Bonita completed a PhD titled The epidemiology and management of cerebrovascular disease at the University of Auckland in 1985.
In 1999 Bonita was invited to become the director of surveillance of non-communicable diseases at WHO in Geneva. This led to an interest in global public health policies, and ways to adapt public health guidelines for lower-income countries.
Bonita retired in 2004, and was appointed professor emeritus at the University of Auckland.

## Honours and awards

In 2006 Bonita was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to medicine. In 1996 she was made an Honorary Doctor of Medicine at Umea University, where she is on the Advisory Board of the Aging and Life Course Programme.

## Selected works

* Beaglehole, Robert; Bonita, Ruth, eds. (9 July 2009). Global Public Health: A New Era (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780191724053.
* Robert Beaglehole; Ruth Bonita; Richard Horton; et al. (5 April 2011). "Priority actions for the non-communicable disease crisis". The Lancet. 377 (9775): 1438–1447. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60393-0. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 21474174. Wikidata Q34176583.
* Kathleen Strong; Colin Mathers; Ruth Bonita (1 February 2007). "Preventing stroke: saving lives around the world". Lancet Neurology. 6 (2): 182–187. doi:10.1016/S1474-4422(07)70031-5. ISSN 1474-4422. PMID 17239805. Wikidata Q50796686.
* Robert Beaglehole; Ruth Bonita; George Alleyne; et al. (12 June 2011). "UN High-Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases: addressing four questions". The Lancet. 378 (9789): 449–455. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60879-9. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 21665266. Wikidata Q57403213.
* Ruth Bonita; Shanthi Mendis; Thomas Truelsen; Julien Bogousslavsky; James Toole; Frank Yatsu (1 July 2004). "The global stroke initiative". Lancet Neurology. 3 (7): 391–393. doi:10.1016/S1474-4422(04)00800-2. ISSN 1474-4422. PMID 15207791. Wikidata Q35811036.
* Vasilis Kontis; Colin D Mathers; Jürgen Rehm; et al. (2 May 2014). "Contribution of six risk factors to achieving the 25×25 non-communicable disease mortality reduction target: a modelling study". The Lancet. 384 (9941): 427–437. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(14)60616-4. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 24797573. Wikidata Q43820015.