Infectious diseases transmissible from animals to people (zoonoses) have long been the focus of disease surveillance and control programs. Our knowledge of the zoonoses results in great part from well designed epidemiology studies. Only recently, however, has the human health benefits resulting from human-animal interactions been recognized. In the lectures on the epidemiology of human-animal interactions we try to illustrate both the adverse and beneficial human health consequences of human-animal interactions and we explore the relatively new concept of the human-animal bond.