This book will cover four of the major strands of the courses taught to medical undergraduates under the umbrella terms of epidemiology and public health. Namely mainstream epidemiology, critical appraisal of medical evidence or evidence based medicine, population based issues such as communicable disease and environmental hazard, and the provision of health care. In the new curricula, these courses tend to occur in years one or two, and are often, together with behavioural sciences and primary care, partof larger courses called something like "Human Basis of Medicine" or "Medicine and Society".
Greater importance is being placed on these topics than previously, and this, together with the fashion for evidence-based medicine, will ensure that the subject has a higher exam priority for students than in the past. Currently available books tend to be biased towards epidemiology or towards public health, thus necessitating the purchase of two books rather than one, and none offers the integrated approach at alevel suitable for undergraduates which is a feature of our book.