This book explores and analyzes the options for preventive medicine, considered from various viewpoints - epidemiological, sociological, political, practical, and ethical. The uniting theme is the concept of health as an issue for populations as well as for individuals. This has applications throughout medicine and these are illustrated by a wide range of examples. The book will be valuable to professionals and students in public health, epidemiology and health economics. It will also be of interest to health service managers and planners, clinicians interested in prevention, and all those concerned with health as a public issue.