About This Book

This book is based on a course given to students in the Public Health B.Sc. program at Lake Washington Institute of Technology.  It is designed to form a solid foundation on which students can build as they advance in their professional careers.  In this course, students gain a fundamental knowledge of disease and a clear understanding of structural and functional changes in tissues and organs within the body due to disease.

The book is organized into three main sections. The first section has eight chapters and deals with general concepts of disease affecting the body and infectious agents. The second section of the book has five chapters and considers chronic diseases and their likely causes. Finally, the last section of the book has three chapters for the students to refresh their memory on basic  biology concepts.

I welcome and encourage my students to be the editors for this first version as we collectively read the text and compile resources that will be beneficial for future students in the program.