our view that this account of community medicine will also be of value to established practitioners -community physicians, community health doctors, senior nurses and health visitors - who wish to con­ solidate or update their knowledge. The growing involvement of the professions in the management and planning of health services means that many general practitioners, hospital doctors and nurses are being called upon to take a population perspective and to become acquainted with many of the concepts and issues discussed in this book. In addition, there are those professionals who work closely with medicine and nursing and have a common concern in providing care and promoting prevention -groups such as social workers and health education personnel. For all these reasons we would ho pe that many groups might read the book and find it useful.