It is increasingly clear that a broader and deeper understanding of the global environment in general, and the global ocean in particular, can provide essential insights into the health and well-being of humankind.  Climate change may be the most publicly debated of these relationships; however, the general interconnections between environmental change and humans are even more complex and challenging.  To acquire the capacity to manage environmentally induced risks and to ensure access to the social benefits offered by natural systems requires a new, more integrated view of human development and environmental change.  Recognition of that need is evolving.  Most notably the emerging discipline of Ocean and Human Health provides an excellent example for improved assessment, greater understanding and directed action. The Ocean and Human Health: Society and Human Well Being is an essential contribution to this interdisciplinary integration. It will extend the Risks and Remedies themes to include both the socio-economic challenges of human health risks, and the social benefits of sustainable coastal development and resource use both of which are insufficiently explored in the existing literature.  These socio-economic themes are often addressed and assessed in different ways in different countries.  The proposed volume is, therefore, designed to include multiple international and interdisciplinary authors, ensuring a more comprehensive and multinational perspective.  In particular, it will be possible to compare and contrast North American and European perspectives, while being of value to a broad global audience. Through a series of edited chapters the goal of the book is broaden the intellectual boundaries of the emerging Ocean and Human Health discipline to a point where social consequences, threats, and benefits can be both understood fully and managed effectively.