Because this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.
In this issue, severalauthors present work on the life-course approach to health anddisease. Also included herein are a number of studies aboutexposures in the perinatal period that have long-term effectson health.
Increasingly, the life-course approach is playing an importantrole in understanding population health and well-being. Thisperspective views health as the product of risk behaviors, protectivefactors, and environmental agents that we encounter throughoutour entire lives and that have cumulative, additive, and evenmultiplicative impacts on specific outcomes. It thus providesa construct for interpreting how peoples experiencesin their early years influence their . . . [Full Text]