The most thorough major academic textbook available, this classic text presents the most important research studies in the field. The author also integrates engaging first-person accounts from patients, physicians, and other health care providers throughout the text. A much greater number of first person accounts and updated examples are added to the new fourteenth edition. Other updates include:

• Coverage of Zika, Ebola, MERS, and updates on other pandemics

• Expanded discussion of obesity as a disease

• Coverage of the widening gap in life expectancy between the rich and the poor

• New information on the decline of life expectancy among American white women, especially those who live in rural counties

• New material on biomarkers, gene–environment interaction, and stress

• Analysis of the role of the hidden curriculum in medical schools

• Exiting the Affordable Care Act