Animal Social Networks


Book Description

This book demonstrates the application of network theory to the social organization of animals.




The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century


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.




Population and the Social System


Book Description




Population and Society


Book Description

These twenty-five readings are essential to the study of population and society. The two basic perspectives, Malthusian and Marxist, are well articulated from the start. Some selections are classic, chosen on the strength of their centrality to the popular literature, while others are contemporary and controversial.




Population and Society


Book Description

This comprehensive yet accessible textbook is an ideal resource for undergraduate and graduate students taking their first course in demography. Clearly explaining technical demographic issues without using extensive mathematics, Population and Society is sociologically oriented, but incorporates a variety of social sciences in its approach, including economics, political science, geography, and history. It highlights the significant impact of decision-making at the individual level - especially regarding fertility, but also mortality and migration - on population change. The text engages students by providing numerous examples of demography's practical applications in their lives, and demonstrates the extent of its relevance by examining a wide selection of data from the United States, Africa, Asia, and Europe. This thoroughly revised edition includes four new chapters, covering topics such as race and sexuality, and encourages students to consider the broad implications of population growth and change for global challenges such as environmental degradation.







Procreation and Population in Historical Social Science


Book Description

The book sees procreation, the forgotten basis of population dynamics, and its macrohistorical results through the lenses of world-system analysis in a nondogmatic way. This interdisciplinary book sheds light on the historical paths leading to the current unprecedented numbers of humans on the globe, fuelled by the capitalist demand for labor and mediated by the role of women in society. Procreation and Population is a critical text, opposing the current disciplinary fences that demonstrably hinder our comprehension of social phenomena. Attentive to gender relations, the book boldly tracks “the big picture” of population dynamics and its most reliable theories in times of postmodernist taboos on generalizations and on the search for the historical laws of human society.




Handbook of Population


Book Description

This comprehensive handbook provides an overview and update of the issues, theories, processes, and applications of the social science of population studies. The volume's 30 chapters cover the full range of conceptual, empirical, disciplinary, and applied approaches to the study of demographic phenomena. This book is the first effort to assess the entire field since Hauser and Duncan's 1959 classic, The Study of Population. The chapter authors are among the leading contributors to demographic scholarship over the past four decades. They represent a variety of disciplines and theoretical perspectives as well as interests in both basic and applied research.




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.




Population and Society


Book Description

"An excellent introduction to the study of population and its significance for many of the key social, political, cultural and environmental issues facing the world today. It covers population growth, ageing, migration and mobility, parenting, health inequalities, and much more... The authors do not shy away from areas of continuing debate, providing both sides of an argument and encouraging readers to follow up the original sources" - Tony Champion, Emeritus Professor of Population Geography, Centre for Urban, Regional & Development Studies, Newcastle University and Vice President, British Society for Population Studies, 2011-2013 Population and Society is an undergraduate introduction to population that explains the latest trends in population studies. The text provides a detailed and completely accessible overview that: situates demographic events - fertility, mortality and migration - within the context of broader social impacts and theorisations like social inequalities, individualisation and life course analysis uses global illustrative examples to demonstrate the importance of data and data interpretation in population studies is illustrated throughout with pedagogic features, like chapter opening summaries, suggestions for further readings and case study examples. This text will be widely used as the standard and most up-to-date text on population and society for courses across the social sciences.