Australia spends $60 billion a year on health care and its average health indicators are among the best of any country in the world. None the less, some Australians are much less healthy than others. In exploring the question of why this is so, the couse examines concepts of power and wealth in society and how the distribution of power and wealth in society is reflected in the health of different social classes and ethnic groups. It also traces how modern understandings of health are moving towards a more wholistic model, the challenge of alternative models of health, how the internet is bringing about changes in power relationships in the health fiels and explores controversies over childbirth.