Global Public Health: a new era is a comprehensive updated account of the international state of public health, including an agenda for improving the practice of the discipline across the world. It addresses three major issues:
- the changing global context for public health
- the state of public health theory and practice in developed and developing countries; and
- strategies for strengthening the practice of public health

Section one surveys the complex old and new challenges facing public health practitioners, and then summarises the state of health globally using new data based on measures of the Global Burden of Disease developed by the Word Health Organization, and other groups, to better describe population health states and trends.

Section two presents the first detailed review of the global state of public health. It analyses the public health situation in all regions of the world. Six chapters cover Europe, Latin America, and Australia and New Zealand.. Three chapters cover China, India, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The lessons from these chapters are surprisingly similar: the challenges are great; the public health workforce and infrastructure have long been neglected; and much needs to be done to reinvigorate the practice of public health.

The third section covers several cross cutting themes, including the developing field of international public health ethics and the central and neglected role of the public in strengthening the practice of public health and the opportunities for building the capacity of the public health workforce to respond to the major global health needs.