Book Description

Abstract: Public awareness of disease prevention and health promotion is increasing, partly due to government support, better health education, high costs for health care, and efforts by health officials. The assessment of current health problems and programs covers environmental health--physical, socioeconomic and family; individual health--nutrition, exercise, stress, tobacco use, alcohol and drug use, accidents, and violence; the health care services that are available for each condition--genetic disease, infections, chronic disease, mental disorders and oral disease; and an analysis of the effectiveness of health education programs. Some of the preventive measures which have been highly successful in recent years are immunization (eradication of smallpox is the most dramatic), child resistant containers, lowering the speed limit, and hypertension education and screening.