While life course approaches in the social sciences have a long tradition (Elder and Giele 2009; Heinz et al. 2009), it was not until the 1990s that a life course perspective was also introduced to the analysis of health and longevity. With origins in research on health inequalities, the hypothesis of biological programming and the availability of national longitudinal data, life course epidemiology has been investigating the long-term effects of biological, physical and social exposures on health and chronic disease risk during gestation, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood and later adult life and across the generations (Kuh et al. 2003; Blane et al. 2007; Ben-Shlomo 2007). In this context, a wealth of innovative findings were gained by integrating determinants and mechanisms acting earlier in life to the explanation of health and health inequalities in adulthood. Life course influences are increasingly seen to hold the key to a better understanding of disease aetiology and the existence of social inequalities in health. Present-day life course research in the field of epidemiology and public health faces several challenges and opportunities, which we address in this special issue of the International Journal of Public Health (issue 58-1, 2013). Life course thinking is interdisciplinary in nature. However, life course research on health and health inequalities was largely dominated by epidemiological studies, which paid relatively little attention to other disciplines also relevant for public health. The significant benefits potentially available from bringing together the separate traditions, for example, in demography, epidemiology and sociology have not been fully utilized. With this in mind, the special issue on life course research explicitly covers contributions from several disciplines dealing with health: Mortelmans and Vannieuwenhuyze and Leopold and Engelhardt illustrate the contribution of sociology, Siegel et al. of econometrics, and Neels et al. of demography. Another challenge related to the disciplinary exchange is the further development of conceptual models that elucidate the risk and protective factors at each life stage as well as the underlying mechanisms that link them together across one or more generations. Much life course research involves both social and biological factors, although often their treatment lacks social and biological plausibility. In the special issue, we publish a paper, which attempts to overcome these problems in relation to cancer. Using evidence from epidemiology, neurobiology and biological sciences, Kelly-Irving et al. show that adverse childhood experiences may set up the organism’s susceptibility to the future development of cancer; an effect that can be mediated by subsequent environmental exposures across the individual’s subsequent life course trajectory. So far, life course research on health and health inequalities has been largely informed by birth cohort studies in the UK but increasing evidence comes from longitudinal studies in other countries. The wealth of new studies coming on-stream worldwide offers great scientific This article is part of the special issue ‘‘Life course influences on health and health inequalities: moving towards a Public Health perspective’’.