Bridging Occupational, Organizational and Public Health


Book Description

In our complex, fast changing society, health is strongly influenced by the continuously changing interactions between organisations and their employees. Three major fields contribute to health-oriented improvements of these interactions: occupational health, organizational health and public health. As currently only partial links exist amongst these fields, the book aims to explore potential synergies more systematically. Considering the high mental and social demands in a service and knowledge sector economy, the first part of the book focuses on work-related psychosocial factors. As a large proportion of inequalities in health in developed countries can be explained by inequalities in working conditions, those psychosocial factors with a particularly high public health impact are highlighted. As addressing these psychosocial factors requires to involve the organization as the key change agent, the second part covers approaches to improve public health through organizational level health interventions. The last section takes a look into the future of occupational, organizational and public health: what are the future challenges regarding occupational health and how can they be tackled within and beyond the organizational level. Overall, this integrating book will help to broaden the evidence-base, legitimacy and efficacy of occupational- and organizational-level health interventions and thus increase their public health impact.




The New Public Health Law


Book Description

"This book offers a new approach to teaching and learning public health law. At its heart is a "transdisciplinary" model of public health law, one that recognizes that many different kinds of professionals in public health are using law and need to have the training and skills to apply it effectively in their work: non-lawyers in public health design legal initiatives, advocate for legal reform, implement the law, and monitor and evaluate its effects. For their part, lawyers in public health law practice also do many things beyond their core job description and training in law. They work with epidemiological and behavioral data that define problems and inform legal solutions. They collaborate with others to study the law's implementation and impact. They make the case for public health in the political process. This book supports a public health law and policy course that teaches students in law schools, schools of public health, social work, and other non-JD programs to do these things-and do them collaboratively, using shared frameworks and language"--




Transdisciplinary Public Health


Book Description

"This book makes a great leap in the conceptualization of transdisciplinary approaches, as well as provides concrete examples in practice, teaching, policy, and research." —From the Foreword by Edward F. Lawlor, dean and the William E. Gordon Distinguished Professor, the Brown School; and founding director, Institute for Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis The complexity of public health and social problems is becoming more challenging. Understanding and designing solutions for these problems requires perspectives from multiple disciplines and fields as well as cross-disciplinary research and practice teams. Transdisciplinary Public Health fills a void in the literature and offers a comprehensive text that introduces transdisciplinary methods as a means for providing an innovative tool set for problem-solving in public health research and practice. With contributions from leading experts, Transdisciplinary Public Health offers an understanding of interactions among the biological, behavioral, social, and public health sciences; shared disciplinary frameworks in analyzing health problems; and the integration and evaluation of transdisciplinary solutions to alleviate complex public health issues. Use of this important resource will promote transdisciplinary research and practice, resulting in novel solutions that positively impact human health.




Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Public Health in Europe


Book Description

In recent decades, policymakers all over the world have sought to strengthen the meaning and effect of public, non-medical healthcare. This publication is the result of the research initiation project »Arteria Danubia ‒ Analysis and Discussion on the Implementation of Model Health Regions in the Upper and Lower Reaches of the Danube« (2017 to 2019), which focused on healthcare in Bulgaria, Germany and Hungary. In this book, researchers from the participating universities and organizations explore the topic of public health in all its facets: How can public policy and education influence people’s health? How are lifestyle-related diseases to be avoided? And how best to implement digital healthcare solutions?




Converging Disciplines


Book Description

As urban populations grow, new health problems evolve in tandem with longstanding issues. And as a welter of social, environmental, and access factors further complicate the picture, workable solutions require increasingly sophisticated understanding and innovative methods—generally beyond the scope of one professional field. Converging Disciplines introduces the concept of transdisciplinary research as a multidimensional, research-to-practice approach to urban health issues, not only bringing researchers together but also linking stakeholders, from practitioners to policymakers to community members. This immediately accessible volume differentiates transdisciplinary research from multi- and interdisciplinary strategies, as well as from popular community-based models, and brings a uniquely North American set of perspectives to the concept. Chapter authors explore the theory behind the methods as well as their application in meeting chronic problems (e.g., domestic violence, substance abuse) and working with vulnerable populations (e.g., homeless individuals, refugees) in ways that are ecologically based, ethically sound, and eminently practical. Key areas of coverage: Benefits and challenges of transdisciplinary research in the urban health setting. Transdisciplinary research process, including methodologies, collaboration, and information sharing. Detailed case examples of transdisciplinary research used in addressing health issues among marginalized urban populations. An overview of training programs in the U.S. and Canada. The view from funding agencies. Preparing the university, researchers, and the job market for a transdisciplinary future researchers and graduate students in urban and public health will find inspiring reading in Converging Disciplines: a bold framework for transforming their fields, and the tools for meeting the new generation of urban health challenges.




Handbook of Transdisciplinary Research


Book Description

Transdisciplinary Research (TR) is an emerging field in the knowledge society for relating science and policy in addressing issues such as new technologies, migration, and public health. This handbook provides a structured overview of the manifold experiences gained in these fields. In the first part, 21 projects from all over the world present their research approaches. In the second part, cross-cutting challenges of TR are discussed in reference to the same projects.




Who Will Keep the Public Healthy?


Book Description

Bioterrorism, drug-resistant disease, transmission of disease by global travel . . . there's no shortage of challenges facing America's public health officials. Men and women preparing to enter the field require state-of-the-art training to meet these increasing threats to the public health. But are the programs they rely on provide the high caliber professional training they require? Who Will Keep the Public Healthy? provides an overview of the past, present, and future of public health education, assessing its readiness to provide the training and education needed to prepare men and women to face 21st century challenges. Advocating an ecological approach to public health, the Institute of Medicine examines the role of public health schools and degree-granting programs, medical schools, nursing schools, and government agencies, as well as other institutions that foster public health education and leadership. Specific recommendations address the content of public health education, qualifications for faculty, availability of supervised practice, opportunities for cross-disciplinary research and education, cooperation with government agencies, and government funding for education. Eight areas of critical importance to public health education in the 21st century are examined in depth: informatics, genomics, communication, cultural competence, community-based participatory research, global health, policy and law, and public health ethics. The book also includes a discussion of the policy implications of its ecological framework.




Transdisciplinary Public Health


Book Description

"This book makes a great leap in the conceptualization of transdisciplinary approaches, as well as provides concrete examples in practice, teaching, policy, and research." From the Foreword by Edward F. Lawlor, dean and the William E. Gordon Distinguished Professor, the Brown School; and founding director, Institute for Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis The complexity of public health and social problems is becoming more challenging. Understanding and designing solutions for these problems requires perspectives from multiple disciplines and fields as well as cross-disciplinary research and practice teams. Transdisciplinary Public Health fills a void in the literature and offers a comprehensive text that introduces transdisciplinary methods as a means for providing an innovative tool set for problem-solving in public health research and practice. With contributions from leading experts, Transdisciplinary Public Health offers an understanding of interactions among the biological, behavioral, social, and public health sciences; shared disciplinary frameworks in analyzing health problems; and the integration and evaluation of transdisciplinary solutions to alleviate complex public health issues. Use of this important resource will promote transdisciplinary research and practice, resulting in novel solutions that positively impact human health.




Management of Emerging Public Health Issues and Risks


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




Public Health Law Research


Book Description

Public Health Law Research: Theory and Methods definitively explores the mechanisms, theories and models central to public health law research – a growing field dedicated to measuring and studying law as a central means for advancing public health. Editors Alexander C. Wagenaar and Scott Burris outline integrated theory drawn from numerous disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences; specific mechanisms of legal effect and guidelines for collecting and coding empirical datasets of statutory and case law; optimal research designs for randomized trials and natural experiments for public health law evaluation; and methods for qualitative and cost-benefit studies of law.. They also discuss the challenge of effectively translating the results of scientific evaluations into public health laws and highlight the impact of this growing field. “How exactly the law can best be used as a tool for protecting and enhancing the public’s health has long been the subject of solely opinion and anecdote. Enter Public Health Law Research, a discipline designed to bring the bright light of science to the relationships between law and health. This book is a giant step forward in illuminating that subject.” -- Stephen Teret, JD, MPH, Professor, Director, Center for Law and the Public's Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health “Wagenaar and Burris bring a dose of much needed rigor to the empirical study of which public health law interventions really matter, and which don’t.” -- Bernard S. Black, JD, Chabraja Professor, Northwestern University Law School and Kellogg School of Management Companion Web site: www.josseybass.com/go/wagenaar