This report provides an overview of the health status of the population in France in 2008. It is the third follow-up report on the objectives associated with the Public Health Policy Act of August 9, 2004, following an initial edition in 2006. Its purpose is to provide documentation for the High Council for Public Health (HCSP), established in March 2007 to prepare the evaluation of the Public Health Act of August 9, 2004. This report was prepared, under the coordination of the DREES, by a group of partners and data producers in the health sector (ADEME, AFSSA, AFSSAPS, the Biomedicine Agency, Health Insurance, DARES, DGS-EA, DREES, InCa, INPES, INRETS, INSEE, INSERM, InVS, IRDES, OFDT, ONISR, UFSBD, USEN/CNAM). It follows the work of an expert group which, over the course of a year, under the auspices of the DGS and the DREES, brought together both these main data producers and experts in each of the topics selected by the law. This group operationally defined the relevant indicators already available for monitoring the objectives associated with the law, while identifying and specifying the need for additional information. The report defining the indicators resulting from this work was published in July 2005. In addition to a summary providing an overview of the health status of the population in France and a commentary on cross-cutting framework indicators based on the most recent available data in the relevant fields, the report includes an assessment of the indicators associated with 72 specific objectives. The objectives of the Public Health Policy Act that were not evaluated using quantitative data are those for which data sources were not available. These include, for example, measures of quality of life for certain medical conditions, or health impairments that are difficult to measure in specific groups. Indicators produced at the national level (for all of France or metropolitan France, depending on available sources) were most often broken down by sex, age, socioeconomic status, and educational attainment. Where possible, they were compared to equivalent indicators measured in other European countries. Similarly, territorial disparities (mostly regional) were examined when data permitted. (R.A.)