Book excerpt: This landmark treatise provides the first comprehensive review of basic health behavior research. In four volumes, multidisciplinary contributors critically assess every aspect of health behavior, giving special attention to the interrelationship between personal/social systems and risk behavior. Volume 1 presents useful conceptions of health and health behavior and describes the influence of personal, family, social and institutional factors. Each volume features extensive supplementary and integrative material prepared by the editor, the detailed index to the entire four-volume set, and a glossary of health behavior terminology.