Peter Croft studied social anthropology, qualified and worked as a general practitioner, and trained as an epidemiologist. His research interests concern the causes, course and treatment of common syndromes of musculoskeletal pain as they occur in the community and in primary care. He directs the Arthritis Research Campaign's National Primary Care Centre, a multidisciplinary group of clinicians and researchers located at Keele University in the UK. He is anassociate editor of the journal Pain. The Centre at Keele directed by Peter Croft was awarded a Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education in 2009. Dr Fiona Blyth is a medical epidemiologistand public health physician. She is Head of Pain Epidemiology at the University of Sydney Pain Management Research Institute, Royal North Shore Hospital and at the Centre for Education and Research on Ageing, Concord Hospital, both in Sydney, Australia. She has been involved with large-scale population studies on the size and impact of chronic pain in the community. She has academic appointments at the University of Sydney and the University of Aberdeen (Scotland), where she was the inauguralJames C Petrie Fellow in 2006. Danielle van der Windt's research activities focus on the epidemiology of pain in the community, and the diagnosis, prognosis and management of musculoskeletal disordersand other common symptoms in primary care. She has been involved in the design and conduct of several prospective cohort studies investigating the influence of physical, occupational and psychosocial factors on the prognosis of shoulder pain, neck pain, upper extremity disorders, hip or knee problems. She has a strong interest in research methodology, and is involved in research exploring methods to design and validate prediction models. Other interests concern the methodology of systematicreviews of diagnostic, prognostic and intervention research. She provides methodological support to health care professionals and researchers to undertake research on common musculoskeletal painconditions, and has been involved in the development of clinical guidelines in this field.