The most thorough major academic textbook available, this classic text presents the most important research studies in the field. The author also integrates engaging first-person accounts from patients, physicians, and other health care providers throughout the text. A much greater number of first person accounts and updated examples are added to the new fourteenth edition. Other updates include:

* Coverage of Zika, Ebola, MERS, and updates on other pandemics

* Expanded discussion of obesity as a disease

* Coverage of the widening gap in life expectancy between the rich and the poor

* New information on the decline of life expectancy among American white women, especially those who live in rural counties

* New material on biomarkers, gene-environment interaction, and stress

* Analysis of the role of the hidden curriculum in medical schools

* Exiting the Affordable Care Act