
The Formula for Better Health
How to Save Millions of Lives--Including Your Own
Tom Frieden(Author)
MIT Press
Published on 30. September 2025
Book
Hardback
280 pages
978-0-262-05096-8 (ISBN)
Description
The formula to stop invisible killers an approach that can protect your health and prevent the next pandemic from one of the most influential public health leaders in the US. In The Formula for Better Health, Tom Frieden named the most influential leader in American public health since C. Everett Koop by former Mayor Michael Bloomberg reveals how to defeat the world s deadliest diseases. Drawing from decades leading New York City s health department after 9/11, directing the CDC during the Ebola epidemic, and fighting tuberculosis and other lethal threats in India and around the world, Frieden combines compelling stories with insider knowledge to show how to win the battle for health. In this book, you will step into laboratories that solve mysteries and expose deadly deceptions. You ll meet a trailblazing epidemiologist who survived a Nazi concentration camp, a 17th-century cloth merchant who discovered public health s superpower, and a brilliant Irish doctor knighted for unlocking the cure for tuberculosis. You ll also learn how disease detectives ended America s largest outbreak of drug-resistant tuberculosis, what caused the deadliest mistake during the Covid pandemic, and why we ignore fatal warnings. Most importantly, you ll find out how to stop today's leading killers. Drawing from real-world successes and failures, The Formula for Better Health bridges the lethal gap between scientific knowledge and life-saving action. Whether you want to protect your own health, safeguard your community, or solve seemingly impossible health challenges or all three this book offers realistic hope and a clear path to a healthier future.
Reviews / Votes
Featured in Chasing Life with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Science Friday, Bloomberg, Fortune, PBS NewsHour, Le Monde, the Next Big Idea Club, New York magazine's the Intelligencer, NPR Open to Debate, and more."Compelling ... powerful and memorable ... touching ... refreshing ...enough to pep up the most hard-bitten cynic ...Hope is what The Formula For Better Health is best at giving us with its message that public health still has a place - and an important one - in creating a better world... Exactly what is needed at this moment in time."
-The Lancet
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge (Massachusetts)
United States
Publishing group
MIT Press Ltd
Illustrations
7 BLACK AND WHITE ILLUS.
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 162 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
486 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-262-05096-8 (9780262050968)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
09/2025
MIT Press
€28.99
Available for download
Person
Dr. Tom Frieden helped stop deadly outbreaks in New York City, directed the CDC under President Obama, leading the agency's response to Ebola and other threats, and is now CEO of - Resolve to Save Lives, a global organization that partners with countries to prevent millions of deaths.
Content
Preface - Disease Detectives
Part One: See
1: The Invisible
2: What Blinds Us
3: The Pathway to Progress
Part Two: Believe
4: A Healthy Future is Within Reach
Part Three: Do
5: Organize
6: Implement
7: Communicate
8: Challenge
Part Four: The Solution
9: A Post-Cassandra-Curse World
10: The Formula For Your Health
Conclusion: Clearing the Mystery
Appendix: Ready-Reference Guide
Related Reading
Sources
Part One: See
1: The Invisible
2: What Blinds Us
3: The Pathway to Progress
Part Two: Believe
4: A Healthy Future is Within Reach
Part Three: Do
5: Organize
6: Implement
7: Communicate
8: Challenge
Part Four: The Solution
9: A Post-Cassandra-Curse World
10: The Formula For Your Health
Conclusion: Clearing the Mystery
Appendix: Ready-Reference Guide
Related Reading
Sources