Ageing, health and care

CHRISTINA R. VICTOR is Professor of Gerontology and Public Health and Director for Health Ageing in the Brunel Institute for Ageing Studies at Brunel University, West London, and a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health. Her main research interests are in the areas of ageing and later life, including health status, social networks and social relationships, loneliness and isolation, and the ageing of minority communities. Her most recent book, The social world of older people, co-authored with Sasha Scambler and John Bond, was published by Open University Press in 2008.

"As a text that can be read as a whole or picked off in chunks, this is a good primer in the gerontological library." Age & Ageing

• Introduction: perspectives on ageing, health and care; Introduction to the key concepts; Health and mortality; Chronic disease and disability; Mental health and psychological well-being; Consumption and health; Responding to needs: provision and utilisation of services; Health in the future.