Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309264146
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 421
Book Description
The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.
U.S. Health in International Perspective
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309264146
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 421
Book Description
The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309264146
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 421
Book Description
The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.
The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309133181
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 536
Book Description
The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309133181
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 536
Book Description
The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.
Hyping Health Risks
Author: Geoffrey C. Kabat
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231511965
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
The media constantly bombard us with news of health hazards lurking in our everyday lives, but many of these hazards turn out to have been greatly overblown. According to author and epidemiologist Geoffrey C. Kabat, this hyping of low-level environmental hazards leads to needless anxiety and confusion on the part of the public concerning which exposures have important effects on health and which are likely to have minimal or no effect. Kabat approaches health scares as "social facts" and shows that a variety of factors can contribute to the inflating of a hazard. These include skewed reporting by the media, but also, surprisingly, the actions of researchers who may emphasize certain findings while ignoring others; regulatory and health agencies eager to show their responsiveness to the health concerns of the public; and politicians and advocates with a stake in a particular outcome. By means of four case studies, Kabat demonstrates how a powerful confluence of interests can lead to overstating or distorting the scientific evidence. He considers the health risks of pollutants such as DDT as a cause of breast cancer, electromagnetic fields from power lines, radon within residences, and secondhand tobacco smoke. Tracing the trajectory of each of these hazards from its initial emergence to the present, Kabat shows how publication of more rigorous studies and critical assessments ultimately help put hazards in perspective.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231511965
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Book Description
The media constantly bombard us with news of health hazards lurking in our everyday lives, but many of these hazards turn out to have been greatly overblown. According to author and epidemiologist Geoffrey C. Kabat, this hyping of low-level environmental hazards leads to needless anxiety and confusion on the part of the public concerning which exposures have important effects on health and which are likely to have minimal or no effect. Kabat approaches health scares as "social facts" and shows that a variety of factors can contribute to the inflating of a hazard. These include skewed reporting by the media, but also, surprisingly, the actions of researchers who may emphasize certain findings while ignoring others; regulatory and health agencies eager to show their responsiveness to the health concerns of the public; and politicians and advocates with a stake in a particular outcome. By means of four case studies, Kabat demonstrates how a powerful confluence of interests can lead to overstating or distorting the scientific evidence. He considers the health risks of pollutants such as DDT as a cause of breast cancer, electromagnetic fields from power lines, radon within residences, and secondhand tobacco smoke. Tracing the trajectory of each of these hazards from its initial emergence to the present, Kabat shows how publication of more rigorous studies and critical assessments ultimately help put hazards in perspective.
Communities in Action
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309452961
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 583
Book Description
In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309452961
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 583
Book Description
In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.
Management of Emerging Public Health Issues and Risks
Author: Benoit Roig
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0128132914
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 316
Book Description
Management of Emerging Public Health Issues and Risks: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Changing Environment addresses the threats facing the rapidly changing world and provides guidance on how to manage risks to population health. Unlike conventional and recognized risks (major, industrial, and natural), emerging risks are characterized by low or non-existent scientific knowledge, high levels of uncertainty, and different levels of acceptability by the relevant authorities and exposed populations. Emerging risk must be analyzed through multiple and crossed approaches identifying the phenomenon linked to the emergence of risk but also by combining scientific, policy and social data in order to provide more enlightened decision making. Management of Emerging Public Health Issues and Risks: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Changing Environment provides examples of transdisciplinary approaches used to characterize, analyze, and manage emerging risks. This book will be useful for public health researchers, policy makers, and students as well as those working in emergency management, risk management, security, environmental health, nanomaterials, and food science. - Presents emerging risks from the technological, environmental, health, and energy sectors, as well as their social impacts - Contextualizes emerging risks as new threats, existing threats in new locations, and known issues, which are newly recognized as risks due to increased scientific knowledge - Includes case studies from around the world to reinforce concepts
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0128132914
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 316
Book Description
Management of Emerging Public Health Issues and Risks: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Changing Environment addresses the threats facing the rapidly changing world and provides guidance on how to manage risks to population health. Unlike conventional and recognized risks (major, industrial, and natural), emerging risks are characterized by low or non-existent scientific knowledge, high levels of uncertainty, and different levels of acceptability by the relevant authorities and exposed populations. Emerging risk must be analyzed through multiple and crossed approaches identifying the phenomenon linked to the emergence of risk but also by combining scientific, policy and social data in order to provide more enlightened decision making. Management of Emerging Public Health Issues and Risks: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Changing Environment provides examples of transdisciplinary approaches used to characterize, analyze, and manage emerging risks. This book will be useful for public health researchers, policy makers, and students as well as those working in emergency management, risk management, security, environmental health, nanomaterials, and food science. - Presents emerging risks from the technological, environmental, health, and energy sectors, as well as their social impacts - Contextualizes emerging risks as new threats, existing threats in new locations, and known issues, which are newly recognized as risks due to increased scientific knowledge - Includes case studies from around the world to reinforce concepts
Health and Risk Communication
Author: Rodney Jones
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134078269
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
Health and Risk Communication provides a critical and comprehensive overview of the core issues surrounding health and risk communication from the perspective of applied linguistics. It outlines the ways applied linguistics differs from other methods of understanding health and risk communication, assesses the benefits and limitations of the approaches used by different scholars in the field, and offers an innovative framework for consolidating past research and charting new directions. Utilizing data from clinical interactions and everyday life, this book addresses a number of crucial questions including: How are the everyday actions we take around health constructed and constrained through discourse? What is the role of texts in influencing health behaviour, and how are these texts put together and interpreted by readers? How are actions and identities around health and risk negotiated in situated social interactions, and what are the factors that influence these negotiations? How will new technologies like genetic screening influence the way we communicate about health? How does communication about health and risk help create communities and institutions and reflect and reproduce broader ideologies and patterns of power and inequality within societies? Health and Risk Communication: An Applied Linguistic Perspective is essential reading for advanced students and researchers studying and working in this area.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134078269
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 236
Book Description
Health and Risk Communication provides a critical and comprehensive overview of the core issues surrounding health and risk communication from the perspective of applied linguistics. It outlines the ways applied linguistics differs from other methods of understanding health and risk communication, assesses the benefits and limitations of the approaches used by different scholars in the field, and offers an innovative framework for consolidating past research and charting new directions. Utilizing data from clinical interactions and everyday life, this book addresses a number of crucial questions including: How are the everyday actions we take around health constructed and constrained through discourse? What is the role of texts in influencing health behaviour, and how are these texts put together and interpreted by readers? How are actions and identities around health and risk negotiated in situated social interactions, and what are the factors that influence these negotiations? How will new technologies like genetic screening influence the way we communicate about health? How does communication about health and risk help create communities and institutions and reflect and reproduce broader ideologies and patterns of power and inequality within societies? Health and Risk Communication: An Applied Linguistic Perspective is essential reading for advanced students and researchers studying and working in this area.
Improving Health in the Community
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309055342
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 497
Book Description
How do communities protect and improve the health of their populations? Health care is part of the answer but so are environmental protections, social and educational services, adequate nutrition, and a host of other activities. With concern over funding constraints, making sure such activities are efficient and effective is becoming a high priority. Improving Health in the Community explains how population-based performance monitoring programs can help communities point their efforts in the right direction. Within a broad definition of community health, the committee addresses factors surrounding the implementation of performance monitoring and explores the "why" and "how to" of establishing mechanisms to monitor the performance of those who can influence community health. The book offers a policy framework, applies a multidimensional model of the determinants of health, and provides sets of prototype performance indicators for specific health issues. Improving Health in the Community presents an attainable vision of a process that can achieve community-wide health benefits.
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309055342
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 497
Book Description
How do communities protect and improve the health of their populations? Health care is part of the answer but so are environmental protections, social and educational services, adequate nutrition, and a host of other activities. With concern over funding constraints, making sure such activities are efficient and effective is becoming a high priority. Improving Health in the Community explains how population-based performance monitoring programs can help communities point their efforts in the right direction. Within a broad definition of community health, the committee addresses factors surrounding the implementation of performance monitoring and explores the "why" and "how to" of establishing mechanisms to monitor the performance of those who can influence community health. The book offers a policy framework, applies a multidimensional model of the determinants of health, and provides sets of prototype performance indicators for specific health issues. Improving Health in the Community presents an attainable vision of a process that can achieve community-wide health benefits.
Health, Risk, and Adversity
Author: Catherine Panter-Brick
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 184545281X
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
Research on health involves evaluating the disparities that are systematically associated with the experience of risk, including genetic and physiological variation, environmental exposure to poor nutrition and disease, and social marginalization. This volume provides a unique perspective - a comparative approach to the analysis of health disparities and human adaptability - and specifically focuses on the pathways that lead to unequal health outcomes. From an explicitly anthropological perspective situated in the practice and theory of biosocial studies, this book combines theoretical rigor with more applied and practice-oriented approaches and critically examines infectious and chronic diseases, reproduction, and nutrition.
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 184545281X
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
Research on health involves evaluating the disparities that are systematically associated with the experience of risk, including genetic and physiological variation, environmental exposure to poor nutrition and disease, and social marginalization. This volume provides a unique perspective - a comparative approach to the analysis of health disparities and human adaptability - and specifically focuses on the pathways that lead to unequal health outcomes. From an explicitly anthropological perspective situated in the practice and theory of biosocial studies, this book combines theoretical rigor with more applied and practice-oriented approaches and critically examines infectious and chronic diseases, reproduction, and nutrition.
Care Without Coverage
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309083435
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 213
Book Description
Many Americans believe that people who lack health insurance somehow get the care they really need. Care Without Coverage examines the real consequences for adults who lack health insurance. The study presents findings in the areas of prevention and screening, cancer, chronic illness, hospital-based care, and general health status. The committee looked at the consequences of being uninsured for people suffering from cancer, diabetes, HIV infection and AIDS, heart and kidney disease, mental illness, traumatic injuries, and heart attacks. It focused on the roughly 30 million-one in seven-working-age Americans without health insurance. This group does not include the population over 65 that is covered by Medicare or the nearly 10 million children who are uninsured in this country. The main findings of the report are that working-age Americans without health insurance are more likely to receive too little medical care and receive it too late; be sicker and die sooner; and receive poorer care when they are in the hospital, even for acute situations like a motor vehicle crash.
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309083435
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 213
Book Description
Many Americans believe that people who lack health insurance somehow get the care they really need. Care Without Coverage examines the real consequences for adults who lack health insurance. The study presents findings in the areas of prevention and screening, cancer, chronic illness, hospital-based care, and general health status. The committee looked at the consequences of being uninsured for people suffering from cancer, diabetes, HIV infection and AIDS, heart and kidney disease, mental illness, traumatic injuries, and heart attacks. It focused on the roughly 30 million-one in seven-working-age Americans without health insurance. This group does not include the population over 65 that is covered by Medicare or the nearly 10 million children who are uninsured in this country. The main findings of the report are that working-age Americans without health insurance are more likely to receive too little medical care and receive it too late; be sicker and die sooner; and receive poorer care when they are in the hospital, even for acute situations like a motor vehicle crash.
Assessment of Population Health Risks of Policies
Author: Gabriel Guliš
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461485975
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
Assessment of Population Health Risks of Policies Gabriel Guliš, Odile Mekel, Balázs Ádám, and Liliana Cori, editors Public health continues to evolve as professionals work not only to prevent disease and promote well-being but also to reduce health disparities and protect the environment. To a greater extent, policy is intimately linked to this process, a reality that is gaining traction in the public health sector. With this understanding in mind, Assessment of Population Health Risks of Policies introduces an international set of guidelines, Risk Assessment from Policies to Impact Dimension (RAPID). In keeping with widely recognized models of public health operations, this innovative methodology factors in social, environmental, and economic health determinants to predict adverse outcomes to populations arising from large-scale policy decisions. Case studies from across the European Union illustrate both the intricacies of risk quantification and other components of assessment and possible relationships between policy and health outcomes. And contributors suggest how international health standards may be implemented despite significant cultural and political differences among nations. Included in the coverage: Public health, policy analysis, risk assessment and impact assessment Risk assessment, impact assessment and evaluation Top-down versus bottom-up policy risk assessment Quantification of health risks Application of RAPID guidance on an international policy Use of policy risk assessment results in political decision making Assessment of Population Health Risks of Policies is an essential and proactive read for researchers and practitioners in impact assessment, public policy, public health, and epidemiology.
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461485975
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 282
Book Description
Assessment of Population Health Risks of Policies Gabriel Guliš, Odile Mekel, Balázs Ádám, and Liliana Cori, editors Public health continues to evolve as professionals work not only to prevent disease and promote well-being but also to reduce health disparities and protect the environment. To a greater extent, policy is intimately linked to this process, a reality that is gaining traction in the public health sector. With this understanding in mind, Assessment of Population Health Risks of Policies introduces an international set of guidelines, Risk Assessment from Policies to Impact Dimension (RAPID). In keeping with widely recognized models of public health operations, this innovative methodology factors in social, environmental, and economic health determinants to predict adverse outcomes to populations arising from large-scale policy decisions. Case studies from across the European Union illustrate both the intricacies of risk quantification and other components of assessment and possible relationships between policy and health outcomes. And contributors suggest how international health standards may be implemented despite significant cultural and political differences among nations. Included in the coverage: Public health, policy analysis, risk assessment and impact assessment Risk assessment, impact assessment and evaluation Top-down versus bottom-up policy risk assessment Quantification of health risks Application of RAPID guidance on an international policy Use of policy risk assessment results in political decision making Assessment of Population Health Risks of Policies is an essential and proactive read for researchers and practitioners in impact assessment, public policy, public health, and epidemiology.