Facts for Life has been widely read - with 15 million copies available in 215 languages. In March 2002, it had its first major revision in a decade and has added new PDF and website versions.

FFL is a joint effort of UNICEF, WHO, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNDP, UNAIDS, WFP and the World Bank to provide families and communities with essential information on low-cost ways to help prevent child deaths and diseases and to protect women during pregnancy and childbirth.

"In countries where there is only one doctor for thousands of citizens, Facts for Life is providing basic health information to women and children who often lack any other access to care," said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy. "Facts for Life has revolutionized people's lives by delivering simple health messages that people in every corner of the world can act on. Everyone has a right to know this information."

The new PDF and web versions will be available in English, French or Spanish. The website also comes with a text-only version specially designed for surfers with slow or unreliable Internet connections.

This new edition of FFL contains updated information throughout, especially in the HIV/AIDS chapter, and there are two new chapters: one on avoiding injuries and one on dealing with emergencies and disasters.

The health messages in earlier editions of the book have been disseminated in myriad ways: as training material for health workers, in literacy classes, in schools, in lectures by health workers, politicians and religious leaders, and even transformed into folk plays and TV soap operas around the world. Messages have also been used as "fillers" by radio disc jockeys, printed on T-shirts, shopping bags, sales receipts and matchboxes. In Ecuador, a travelling carnival with mimes, clowns and magicians interpreted Facts for Life for local villages. In Nigeria, local newspapers printed Facts for Life messages as a weekly health column and a comic strip. The book is also used in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, where 70,000 copies have been printed and distributed.