Horrendous Death, Health, and Well-being


Book Description

A treatment of the incidence of horrendous death, both inadvertent and deliberate, which views the phenomenon as the greatest public health problem of modern times. The author argues that as man causes such deaths, he can also learn to eliminate them by collective action.




Well-Being and Death


Book Description

Well-Being and Death addresses philosophical questions about death and the good life: what makes a life go well? Is death bad for the one who dies? How is this possible if we go out of existence when we die? Is it worse to die as an infant or as a young adult? Is it bad for animals and fetuses to die? Can the dead be harmed? Is there any way to make death less bad for us? Ben Bradley defends the following views: pleasure, rather than achievement or the satisfaction of desire, is what makes life go well; death is generally bad for its victim, in virtue of depriving the victim of more of a good life; death is bad for its victim at times after death, in particular at all those times at which the victim would have been living well; death is worse the earlier it occurs, and hence it is worse to die as an infant than as an adult; death is usually bad for animals and fetuses, in just the same way it is bad for adult humans; things that happen after someone has died cannot harm that person; the only sensible way to make death less bad is to live so long that no more good life is possible.




Horrendous Death and Health


Book Description

Some kinds of death are caused by people, deliberately or accidentally. This work argues that horrendous death - by war, homicide, poverty and other man-made means - is the greatest public health problem of our time and can only be defeated by strong co-operative action.




Investing in the Health and Well-Being of Young Adults


Book Description

Young adulthood - ages approximately 18 to 26 - is a critical period of development with long-lasting implications for a person's economic security, health and well-being. Young adults are key contributors to the nation's workforce and military services and, since many are parents, to the healthy development of the next generation. Although 'millennials' have received attention in the popular media in recent years, young adults are too rarely treated as a distinct population in policy, programs, and research. Instead, they are often grouped with adolescents or, more often, with all adults. Currently, the nation is experiencing economic restructuring, widening inequality, a rapidly rising ratio of older adults, and an increasingly diverse population. The possible transformative effects of these features make focus on young adults especially important. A systematic approach to understanding and responding to the unique circumstances and needs of today's young adults can help to pave the way to a more productive and equitable tomorrow for young adults in particular and our society at large. Investing in The Health and Well-Being of Young Adults describes what is meant by the term young adulthood, who young adults are, what they are doing, and what they need. This study recommends actions that nonprofit programs and federal, state, and local agencies can take to help young adults make a successful transition from adolescence to adulthood. According to this report, young adults should be considered as a separate group from adolescents and older adults. Investing in The Health and Well-Being of Young Adults makes the case that increased efforts to improve high school and college graduate rates and education and workforce development systems that are more closely tied to high-demand economic sectors will help this age group achieve greater opportunity and success. The report also discusses the health status of young adults and makes recommendations to develop evidence-based practices for young adults for medical and behavioral health, including preventions. What happens during the young adult years has profound implications for the rest of the life course, and the stability and progress of society at large depends on how any cohort of young adults fares as a whole. Investing in The Health and Well-Being of Young Adults will provide a roadmap to improving outcomes for this age group as they transition from adolescence to adulthood.




Communities in Action


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.




Well-Being


Book Description

The concept of well-being plays a central role in moral and political theory. Policies and actions are justified or criticized on the grounds that they make people better or worse off. But is there really such a thing as well-being, and if so, what is it? Is it pleasure, desire-satisfaction, knowledge, virtue, achievement, some combination of these, or something else entirely? How can we measure well-being, amongst individuals and society? And how can we use it to make moral judgements about people, policies and institutions? In this entertaining and accessible new book, Ben Bradley guides readers through the various philosophical theories of well-being, such as hedonism, perfectionism and pluralism, showing the benefits and drawbacks of each theory. He explores the role of well-being in moral and political theory, and the limitations of welfare-based approaches to ethics such as utilitarianism and welfare egalitarianism. Finally, he introduces puzzles about well-being that arise in moral and prudential deliberations about procreation and death. Well-Being is an ideal introduction to these topics for those with no philosophical background, or for philosophers looking for an overview of current thinking about the subject.




Death Anxiety Handbook: Research, Instrumentation, And Application


Book Description

Presenting a broad coverage of this major area of studies on death and dying, this book provides a systematic presentation of the six most widely used and best validated measures of death anxiety, threat and fear. These chapters consider the available data on the psychometric properties of each instrument and summarize research using them, and also supply a copy of the instrument with scoring keys - to facilitate their use. In addition, other chapters make use of the instrumentation by pursuing questions of applied significance in various health care settings nursing homes, psychotherapy, death education, near death experiences, persons with AIDS, experiences of bereaved young adults.; An introductory chapter introduces the major philosophical and psychological theories of the causes and consequences of death anxiety in adult life, and a closing chapter gives an overview of death education and how this affects attitudes towards death and dying.




Rational Suicide?


Book Description

The idea that suicide may be an acceptable, rational option is rarely presented in professional literature. However, recent events and developments forcefully demonstrate that mental health professionals can no longer ignore the possibility that people can make a rational decision to die. After introducing the concept of rational suicide, the book explores the changing views of suicide over the centuries. Common arguments against rational suicide are examined and rebutted.




Suicide Across The Life Span


Book Description

First published in 1996. The complexities of suicide are examined from the developmental viewpoint. The text includes appropriate case studies, and three research studies, which were conducted especially for this work.




Chronic Sorrow


Book Description

Grief and loss are burgeoning concerns for professional disciplines such as nursing, social work, family therapy, psychology, psychiatry, law, religion and medicine. Although understanding has increased in virtually all other areas of grief and loss, chronic sorrow has received scant attention. Chronic sorrowis a natural grief reaction to losses that are not final, but continue to be present in the life of the griever. This book views chronic sorrow in a life-span perspective, and reveals the effect on the griever and the people close to them. This book fills a void in the literature; and attempts to develop a comprehensive analysis of chronic sorrow that will secure its position within the field of grief and loss.