This examine the changes in health and health-care in 20th-century Britain, showing the development of the life expectance of its citizens: the rising standards of health they come to demand; and how evenly that improving quality of life is shared throughout society. It looks at the relationships which help to determine the standards of health: between men and women; between different classes; between ethnic groups and between the medical profession and the population at large. The book also considers how cultural influences and material factors shape attitudes and beliefs and the effect they have on the practical strategies which different groups have developed to promote their health and well-being. It reveals how it is and was women who continue to play the central role as both formal and informal health promoters and carers and it provides a review and contribution to the current debates over the inequalities in health and health provision in Britain in the 1990s.