Pertussis or whooping cough is an acute infectious disease caused by Bordetella pertussis. It is highly contagious, highly serious, and highly preventable.

To find out more about this condition, please do listen to this BMJ Best Practice podcast interview with Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group and Ashall Professor of Infection and Immunity in Oxford.

Competing interests: AP has been chair of JCVI for the past 12 years.

For more on pertussis, visit BMJ Best Practice.

Social anxiety disorder is common. The 1-year point prevalence rate is about 7% and the estimated lifetime prevalence about 12%.

And social anxiety disorder can have a real effect on a patient’s life.

To find out more about this condition, please do listen to this BMJ Best Practice podcast interview with Professor Craig Sawchuk of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology, Mayo Clinic.

Craig is also the author of our BMJ Best Practice topic on this subject.

For more on social anxiety disorder, visit BMJ Best Practice.

Competing interests: None

Measles is a serious disease. Unfortunately, it is making a comeback.

So we need to know how to diagnose, manage and prevent it.

To find out more about how to do all of this, listen to this BMJ Best Practice podcast interview with Linda Nield, Professor of Medical Education and Pediatrics at West Virginia University School of Medicine.

For more on measles, visit BMJ Best Practice.

Competing interests: None

Paediatric asthma is the most common chronic respiratory disease globally and is a significant cause of childhood morbidity and mortality.

So it is important that we get the diagnosis and management of this condition right.

To find out more, listen to this BMJ Best Practice podcast on asthma in children. It features an interview with Helen Brough, Consultant in Paediatric Allergy and Professor in Paediatric Allergy at King’s College London.

For more on asthma in children, visit BMJ Best Practice.

COI: HB has given speaker talks on food allergy for DBV, Parexel, Stallergenes and Viatris, but these talks were not related to asthma.

It is difficult to say how common factitious disorders are. A review of psychiatric consultations in a tertiary care setting found about 1% of referrals received a diagnosis of factitious disorder. Using an entirely different approach, researchers examined specimens submitted by patients as kidney stones and found that 3.5% were obviously non-physiological.

But whatever the prevalence, the consequences can be serious. They include unnecessary diagnostic procedures or interventions and sometimes self-injury.

To find out more about this condition, please do listen to this BMJ Best Practice podcast interview with James Levenson, Professor of Psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth University. And importantly James is author of our BMJ Best Practice topic on factitious disorders. Competing interests: None

For more on factitious disorders, visit BMJ Best Practice.

Down syndrome is the most common genetic cause of intellectual disability, occurring in 1 in about 800 births worldwide. Children and adults with Down syndrome need high quality care from a wide range of different types of healthcare professionals.

To find out more about this condition, listen to this BMJ Best Practice podcast interview with Kishore Vellody, Professor of Pediatrics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Competing interests: None

For more on Down Syndrome, visit BMJ Best Practice.

In 2016, the estimated number of people globally with active epilepsy was 45.9 million. For the US in 2015, this figure was around 3.4 million. So epilepsy is common and generalised seizures are a common type of epilepsy.

And the consequences can be serious - from medication side effects to status to sudden unexpected death.

To find out more about this problem and what we can do about it, listen to this BMJ Best Practice podcast interview with Daniel Winkel, Assistant Professor of Neurology at Emory University School of Medicine.

For more on generalised seizures, visit BMJ Best Practice.

Competing interests: DW receives consulting fees from NextSense, Inc.

Measles, mumps and rubella are all serious illnesses. They are also all preventable.

Vaccination is safe and effective. But take up of the vaccine is not what it should be.

To find out more about this problem and what we can do about it, please do listen to this BMJ Best Practice podcast interview with Helen Bedford, Professor of Children's Health at the UCL Institute of Child Health.

For more on these infections, visit BMJ Best Practice.

Competing interests: None

Insomnia is common and can be serious.

It is estimated that 10% to 30% of the population may have insomnia. Insomnia can cause accidents and poor productivity at work. Psychiatric disorders, particularly anxiety and depression, are common comorbidities.

To find out more about this problem and what we can do about it, please do listen to this BMJ Best Practice podcast interview with John Winkelman, Chief of the Sleep Disorders Clinical Research Program, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital and Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School.

To find out more about insomnia, visit BMJ Best Practice.

Competing interests: JWW has received honoraria for consulting to Avadel, CVS, Eisai, and Merck, and research grants from Merck and the RLS Foundation.

Hypercholesterolemia is common condition with serious consequences. It is important that we assess, diagnose and manage it appropriately.

To find out more about this problem and what we can do about it, please do listen to this BMJ Best Practice podcast interview with Thorsten Leucker, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

For more on hypercholesterolemia, visit BMJ Best Practice.

Competing interests: TL has received grant funding for his university from Amgen and Merck.