The Nation's Health by Philip R. Lee and Carroll L. Estes. Sudbury: Jones and Bartlett Publishers; 2003. 606 pages, paperback, $56.95.

In this seventh edition, a compendium of articles has been collected to address the broad and rapidly changing health policy landscape in the United States. The purpose of this book is to present a range of views about the current state of healthcare, with a particular emphasis on population health, and prospects for the future of the US healthcare system. Nurses as well as students of public health are the intended audience for this book. The book is divided into 7 parts, each composed of 1 to 2 chapters.

Topics of the 7 parts include "The Health of the Nations and Determinants of Health," "Health Policy and the Politics of Health," "Identifying, Understanding, and Addressing Population Health Problems," "Preparing for Terrorism: A Public Health Response," "Health Care, Health Care Organization, Health Care Financing, and Quality of Care," "Women's Health and the Health Care System," and "Aging and Long-Term Care." The chapters vary from theoretical analysis of policy in "The Study of Public Policy Processes" to the very practical "Drug Coverage for Medicare Beneficiaries." There is a very limited role for tables and figures, most of the chapters being straight text.

This book does intend to address a broad spectrum of topics, and the variety of chapters reflects that intention. The inclusion in this edition of the section on bioterrorism reflects the desire to present up-to-date and relevant public health issues, and also demonstrates the difficulty for printed media of striding the cutting edge of such a dynamic subject as health policy. Material presented in these articles is accurate and complete as far as the data, from the time these articles were written, will allow. As demonstrated in the chapter on Medicare drug coverage, last year's legislative changes have not been addressed and so the value of such readings are limited by their relevancy and timeliness, yet useful in a historical study of US health policy. The authors of the articles in this book include many familiar and important writers and thinkers in health policy, so that a wealth of facts and analyses of critical issues is offered, and may also overwhelm the beginning student of healthcare.

While most of the articles are a relatively brief 5 to 6 pages, the more theoretical sections, such as those on the study of health policy, are lengthier and somewhat dense, making this book a more reasonable choice for a health system overview course than a health policy course. There is clearly more material in this text than can be reasonably incorporated in a semester's study, yet I found myself interested and inclined to refer to the book as a useful source of material about the trends in public health and healthcare over the twentieth century. Articles such as the one on broadening participation in community problem solving will be useful for clinicians and scholars attempting to incorporate a new way of thinking and acting in the development of collaborative practice. Other articles, such as "SCHIP Turns 5," fail to include all the relevant material and so would serve as a snapshot of a program rather than a full accounting. Perhaps the intention of the authors was so broad in preparing this edition that readers would do well to browse and pick and choose, rather than to sit at this text and consume it in its entirety, expecting the appetite for health policy to be satisfied. Thus, as an educator I would use this book as a resource for my lectures rather than as a text to assign in the graduate policy course I teach.

Bonnie Jerome-D'Emilia, PhD, MPH, RN

Assistant Professor of Nursing, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA