Drawing on new scholarship and providing new examples, this new edition of Epidemiology and the People's Health extends its analysis of theories employed to explain patterns of disease in their societal and ecological context and explicates how epidemiologic theory has long shaped epidemiologic practice, knowledge, and the politics of public health. The range of theories spans from ancient Greece and China and different strands of traditional medicine to the 19th-century rise of epidemiology as a scientific discipline on through the present and contrasts the currently dominant theories -- biomedical and lifestyle -- to their social epidemiologic alternatives: sociopolitical, psychosocial, and ecosocial theory of disease distribution. Central to the argument of this book is that explicit use of- and debates over -- epidemiologic theories of disease distribution will improve the odds of producing epidemiologic knowledge truly useful for preventing disease, improving the public's health, and advancing health justice.