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This is a practical public health book - written by public health practitioners for public health practitioners. It introduces learning practitioners to the early phases of approaching a public health issue, details why an issue is important and exactly how it can be analysed and addressed. It deals not only with the technical issues, but crucially with how those technical issues can be implemented in order to improve the health of the population directly, or via one of manyimportant causal pathways (quality of health care design and delivery). It is written by experienced, internationally known practitioners of public health.

Social inequalities are established features of the distribution of physical disease in the UK and many other developed countries. In most physical diseases, a clear trend of poorer health is evident with each step down the hierarchy of social position. By contrast, the nature of the links between social position and mental illness in the general population has appeared less clear. This lack of clarity is problematic, as mental disorders are major causes of disability, especially in adults of working age. Social Inequalities and the Distribution of the Common Mental Disorders presents in-depth and up-to-date research, looking at the links between social position, ethnicity and mental health. Its findings will have implications for mental health professionals and policy makers.