This third edition of the widely acclaimed and best-selling Essential Public Health is the standard text in many institutions and widely read by students and practitioners across a range of disciplines. The expanded and updated book brings together, in one volume, the principles and applications of epidemiology, the main health problems experienced by populations and by the main groups within them, the strategies for intervention to promote health and prevent disease, the main themes underlying health policy formulation and a description of the provision of health services.

It includes entirely new chapters and topics considering current concerns, changes in policy, recent developments and trends and major NHS reforms, including outbreaks of new and emerging diseases, pandemics, the increasing elderly population, disability, and the promotion of health in young people. The practical, easy to comprehend approach encompasses the entire scope of modern public health whilst describing and discussing the range of services required in providing a comprehensive system of care.

The book is essential reading for all students of public health, as well as students of medicine, nursing, health visiting, policy and social science. Those involved in courses of postgraduate study, particularly those in public health, will find it of great value, as will anyone embarking on a career in public health. It is also an extremely useful resource for established practitioners - public health doctors, senior nurses, general practitioners and health visitors - and highly recommended for healthcare policy makers and shapers, healthcare service managers, and members of NHS boards and Primary Care Trusts.