Population Health: Creating a Culture of Wellness (3rd Ed.)

The Challenge It Addresses

The United States spends more on healthcare than any other high-income nation, yet continues to underperform on life expectancy, chronic disease rates, and health equity. The root cause is structural: most medical and public health training still emphasizes episodic sick-care delivery rather than keeping entire populations well. Professionals entering healthcare leadership, clinical practice, and community health need a fundamentally different mental model.

Population Health: Creating a Culture of Wellness directly addresses that need. It trains readers to think beyond the exam room and manage health across communities, employer workforces, and health-system populations — the core competency of modern value-based care.

About Population Health: Creating a Culture of Wellness (3rd Ed.)

Population Health: Creating a Culture of Wellness is the Third Edition of the leading textbook on population health management, authored by David B. Nash, Alexis Skoufalos, Raymond J. Fabius, and Willie H. Oglesby, and published by Jones & Bartlett Learning in 2021.

The book defines population health as the systematic pursuit of better health outcomes for a defined group — a neighborhood, an employer’s workforce, a health plan’s membership, or an entire region. It then provides the frameworks to measure those outcomes, improve them, and redesign care delivery around prevention and wellness.

This is not an epidemiology reference or a purely theoretical survey. It is a management playbook for transforming healthcare organizations into engines of community wellness and health equity.

Who Is This Book For?

This textbook is intentionally cross-disciplinary. It is adopted in graduate programs in public health, health administration, nursing, and medicine, and it is equally valued by working professionals who need a structured introduction to population health management.

The book is most valuable for:

• MPH and DrPH students who want a practical, management-oriented foundation in public health
• Master of Health Administration (MHA) students learning value-based delivery and payment models
• Nurse leaders and clinical executives responsible for population health initiatives
• Physicians and clinicians moving into accountable care organizations and integrated systems
• Healthcare administrators leading quality improvement, health equity, and community outreach programs
• Policy professionals and community health workers designing wellness interventions at scale

Inside: What You Will Master

Each chapter builds capability across the full population health spectrum — from measurement and risk stratification to payment reform and organizational change. By the end of this Third Edition, you will command:

1. The core definitions, frameworks, and metrics that define the population health field
2. How social determinants of health drive outcomes, and where to intervene for maximum equity impact
3. Evidence-informed strategies for preventing chronic disease and promoting wellness in clinical and community settings
4. The structure of value-based care, including accountable care organizations and patient-centered medical homes
5. Practical methods for measuring quality, cost, and patient outcomes across a defined population
6. How to align employers, community stakeholders, and public health agencies around shared goals
7. Leadership and change-management tactics for building a genuine culture of wellness inside organizations
8. Real-world case studies that connect health policy, payment reform, and population health practice

Readers consistently rate the case-based frameworks as the most immediately useful part of the book — concepts they can begin applying in an internship, residency, or leadership role right away.

Why Choose This Edition

Most competing textbooks fall into one of two camps: epidemiology-heavy surveys that never reach management practice, or behavioral theory compendiums that ignore payment reform and system design. This book occupies the crucial middle ground that students and working professionals actually need.

The structural advantage is the four-author leadership team. Every author operates at the intersection of clinical care, business, and public policy, giving the text an unusual combination of operational realism and academic rigor. The result reads like a diverse faculty panel speaking with one voice.

The Third Edition also benefits from the full Jones & Bartlett Learning publishing infrastructure, including the Navigate 2 digital platform referenced in university course adoptions — a significant upgrade over standalone PDFs or outdated print editions still in circulation.

• Management and leadership emphasis rather than theory-only coverage
• Value-based payment concepts integrated throughout, not bolted onto the final chapter
• Frameworks immediately applicable to ACOs, health plans, hospitals, and community programs
• Publisher-supported companion resources for instructors, students, and course adoption
• A current 2021 Third Edition aligned with today’s healthcare policy and delivery environment

Author & Publisher Credentials

Population Health: Creating a Culture of Wellness is written by four recognized leaders in U.S. healthcare, each bringing a distinct disciplinary lens to the same core mission:

• David B. Nash, MD, MBA — a pioneering physician-executive who helped establish population health as an academic discipline
• Alexis Skoufalos, EdD, MS — an expert in health education, academic program leadership, and interprofessional workforce development
• Raymond J. Fabius, MD, FACPE — a national leader in corporate wellness and employer-sponsored population health programs
• Willie H. Oglesby, PhD, MBA, MSPH, FACHE — a scholar of community health needs assessment and public health practice
• The combined team spans medicine, education, corporate health, and community practice — a breadth rarely found in a single volume

These credentials are listed exactly as they appear in the official Jones & Bartlett Learning catalog. As an established academic publisher in the health professions, Jones & Bartlett Learning is one of the most trusted names in health science education.

Final Assessment

Yes — for anyone who needs to operationalize population health rather than simply define it. The Third Edition is the version to own if you want the best balance of currency, breadth, and practical utility available today.

Consider the economics: one graduate course typically costs hundreds of dollars in tuition, yet this single text delivers the conceptual core of a complete population health curriculum. It is the kind of book you keep on your desk and revisit for years — not one you shelve after the final exam.

For faculty, it remains one of the most teachable texts in the discipline, with Jones & Bartlett Learning’s assessment tools and instructor resources reducing course-preparation burden while keeping students engaged.

Add Population Health: Creating a Culture of Wellness (3rd Ed.) to Your Library

Whether you are a graduate student preparing for a career in public health, a clinician stepping into value-based care, or an administrator accountable for population health outcomes, this Third Edition belongs on your desk. It is the most direct route from understanding population health to leading its solutions.

Get your copy of Population Health: Creating a Culture of Wellness today and join the next generation of leaders building a true culture of wellness. Your digital download of the 2021 Third Edition from Jones & Bartlett Learning is available now — order today and start reading immediately.