Prof. Dr. Wong Li Ping is a Professor of Behavioral Epidemiology in the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya. Trained in Malaysia, she obtained her PhD from Universiti Malaya in 2004. She is an internationally recognised scholar in behavioural epidemiology and social behavioural medicine, with research spanning over two decades on how human behaviour, beliefs, and social contexts shape health outcomes.
Prof. Wong’s research spans a broad spectrum of public health domains, with particularly strong contributions to sexual and reproductive health, vaccine confidence and acceptance, infectious diseases, and mental health. She is especially recognized for her pioneering work on HPV vaccination attitudes and intentions, with many of her studies among the earliest in Malaysia to examine these issues, thereby advancing understanding of HPV vaccine hesitancy across multi-ethnic populations. Building on this expertise, she played a leading role in generating some of the earliest behavioural evidence on HPV vaccination following its introduction in China, where availability came relatively later. This work contributed to a series of important early publications that provided critical insights into vaccine acceptance in China.
Her contributions to pandemic and emerging infectious diseases form a defining component of her career, spanning Malaysia, China, Taiwan, Japan, and several Southeast Asian countries. This includes influential early studies on H1N1 and COVID-19, where she demonstrated the critical roles of institutional trust, risk perception, and communication in shaping public responses and preventive behaviours. Her COVID-19 research has been among her most impactful work, with early publications contributing to the global understanding of COVID-19 vaccination intention and public behavioural responses during the pandemic. Prof. Wong’s research has also contributed significantly to neglected tropical infectious diseases, including dengue, Zika, and emerging infections such as Nipah virus, where she integrates behavioural science with biomedical and translational research to strengthen public health responses. She has also led national-level study on antimicrobial resistance, digital health adoption, and occupational health. Across these areas, her work continuously advances behavioural medicine, deepening understanding of how knowledge, beliefs, and social determinants shape health practices and outcomes across evolving public health challenges.
Another distinctive aspect of her work is the advancement of a broader dimension of behavioural medicine that extends beyond disease-focused research. One example is her contribution to humanistic medical education through the Silent Mentor Program (SMP) at Universiti Malaya. Her research in this area represents a departure from her earlier work, exploring themes of empathy, altruism, and professional identity formation among healthcare trainees, and demonstrating how humanistic experiences can reduce death anxiety and foster compassionate care among healthcare providers. This work exemplifies her commitment to continually broadening the scope of behavioural medicine into new frontiers.
Prof. Wong has an extensive publication record and has been consistently ranked among the Top 2% of Scientists Worldwide (Stanford University) since the inception of the ranking in 2019. She is actively involved in international collaborations, holds adjunct professorships at multiple institutions, and serves as Associate Editor for several peer-reviewed journals.
