Biography

Xi Yin leads the Health Promotion and Policy unit in the Division of Health Promotion, Disease Prevention and Control (DPC) at the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific. In this role, she oversees regional efforts to reduce the burden of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and injuries, supporting countries in implementing evidence‑based policies to address major risk factors – including alcohol consumption, tobacco use, and unhealthy diets.

Xi currently also serves as the Acting Lead for DPC’s Nutrition and Food Safety unit. She provides strategic leadership across multisectoral prevention agendas, strengthening policy coherence, surveillance, and regulatory measures to advance public health.

Previously, Xi served as Coordinator/Regional Advisor for the Tobacco‑Free Initiative at the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific, and from 2019 to 2022, was based at the WHO China Office, where she led the tobacco control and NCD prevention team, supporting national and subnational reforms to strengthen population‑level risk‑factor reduction.

Before joining WHO, Xi spent more than a decade in global public health advocacy as Regional Director for East Asia and Pacific Programmes at the Campaign for Tobacco‑Free Kids (Global Advocacy Incubator). Over her 12‑year tenure, she led advocacy strategy development, coalition building and policy implementation efforts that contributed to major public health advances across different countries in Asia-Pacific.