Health professionals face a complex and changing health profile locally, nationally and internationally, and the biomedical model for understanding health problems does not adequately explain these complexities or sufficiently help health professionals successfully intervene to improve the population’s health. It is therefore critical for health professionals to reflect upon the social and behavioural factors that influence health and work in partnership to influence these factors. This unit is a foundation unit for graduate public health, environmental health and health safety and environment students, and is taken in the first year of a full-time postgraduate degree. The unit provides postgraduate health students with a population health foundation, and is a building block for postgraduate study in health.