"This text is organized around the logical sequence of studying and attempting to improve the health of populations: measuring health status and disease burden, identifying and modeling health determinants, assessing health risks and inferring causation, designing research studies, planning interventions, and evaluating health programs. The second edition incorporates many new topics that reflect changes in contemporary public health concerns and our response to them, as well as shifts in research directions. These include life course approaches to health, gene-environment interactions, emergent infections, and bioterrorism."--BOOK JACKET.