EBOOK: Issues in Public Health


Book Description

What is public health and why is it important? By looking at the foundations of public health, its historical evolution, the themes that underpin public health and the increasing importance of globalization, this book provides thorough answers to these two important questions. Written by experts in the field, the book discusses the core issues of modern public health, such as tackling vested interests head on, empowering people so they can make healthy decisions, and recognising the political nature of the issues. The new edition has been updated to identify good modern public health practice, evolving from evidence. New features include: Two new chapters on the expanding role of public health, covering the issues of sustainability and climate change, human rights, genetics and armed conflict Expanded UK and international examples Examination of the impact of globalization on higher and lower income countries Exploration of the tension between the population approach and the personal behaviour change model of health promotion A variety of activities to help understanding and learning of the topics Issues in Public Health is an ideal introductory text for higher education students studying public health in depth. Series Editors: Rosalind Plowman and Nicki Thorogood.




A Systematic Review of Key Issues in Public Health


Book Description

This wide-ranging study reviews the state of public health worldwide and presents informed recommendations for real-world solutions. Identifying the most urgent challenges in the field, from better understanding the causes of acute diseases and chronic conditions to reducing health inequities, it reports on cost-effective, science-based, ethically sound interventions. Chapters demonstrate bedrock skills essential to developing best practices, including flexible thinking for entrenched problems, conducting health impact assessments, and working with decision-makers. From these current findings come long-term practice and policy goals for preventing disease, promoting health, and improving quality of life, both locally and globally. A sampling of the topics covered: · Health trends of communicable diseases. · Epidemiology of cancer and principles of prevention. · Respiratory diseases and health disorders related to indoor and outdoor air pollution. · Public health gerontology and active aging. · Migrant and ethnic minority health. · Public health genomics. A Systematic Review of Key Issues in Public Health offers graduate students in the discipline a firm grasp on the field as it presently stands, and a clear set of directions for its potential future.




The Future of Public Health


Book Description

"The Nation has lost sight of its public health goals and has allowed the system of public health to fall into 'disarray'," from The Future of Public Health. This startling book contains proposals for ensuring that public health service programs are efficient and effective enough to deal not only with the topics of today, but also with those of tomorrow. In addition, the authors make recommendations for core functions in public health assessment, policy development, and service assurances, and identify the level of government--federal, state, and local--at which these functions would best be handled.




Public Health Policy


Book Description

Public Health Policy: Issues, Theories, and Advocacy offers students an engaging and innovative introduction to public health policy: its purpose, how it is originated, and how it is implemented. The book describes the underlying theories and frameworks as well as practical analytical tools needed for effective advocacy and communication. Drawing on the multidisciplinary nature of public health, the book uses concepts and examples from epidemiology, law, economics, political science, and ethics to examine the policymaking process, explain positions pro or con, and develop materials for various audiences to further a public health policy intervention. In addition, Public Health Policy shows how policymaking is a complex and integrated top-down and bottoms-up process that embraces a myriad of public and private stakeholders. Written by a highly experienced health policy researcher and teacher, the book is rich in resources that will enhance teaching and learning. Each chapter begins with an overview of the chapter, including core terms and concepts, and includes illustrative examples of how the highlighted component (law, ethics, economics, politics, epidemiology, and medicine) intersects with public health. Discussion questions at the end of every chapter, along with an interview from an expert from each of the component fields, give real-world perspectives on how that particular subject relates to the overall topic. The book also contains 13 case studies that illustrate the framework discussed in the first part of the book, and show how the different components link to create, sustain, evaluate, or obstruct the development of public health policy. Also included are primers on two essential policy tools: how to write research policy briefs, and how to craft effective letters to an editor, including examples of both drawn from the author's publications in journals and newspapers.




Public Health Law


Book Description

“This book is very well researched, organized, documented, and referenced. The case studies are relevant to specific public health issues related to race, gender, equity, sexual orientation, poverty, homelessness, drug addiction, and chronic diseases facing U.S. populations in the 21st century. The book offers background information for professionals to try to analyze the root causes and develop public health measures to ameliorate these problems." ---Doody's Review Service, 4 stars Public Health Law: Concepts and Case Studies is a practical textbook for students of public health and health policy with comprehensive coverage of core concepts in law across public health sectors. The text builds upon the understanding that law is a significant determinant of health while highlighting essential knowledge of legal issues and laws affecting public health outcomes. Chapters address major topics in United States public health law and take a competency-based approach influenced by models developed by the CDC’s Public Health Law Program. The book describes the most important and relevant considerations of the law through case studies and real-world examples that students and practitioners of public health need as a baseline in order to mitigate health inequities and public health threats. Written with a basis in health equity, chapters also include call-out boxes to appropriate health equity related principles and theories. The book’s three parts explore law as a foundation for public health practice, law in everyday practice, and law as a transdisciplinary public health tool. It addresses key legal concepts such as the sources of authority in the United States legal system, constitutional foundations, limitations of authority, regulation, and litigation as they relate to public health. The most prevalent public health law topics and national public health strategies are covered in clear prose and offer guidance on the law and legal issues related to immunization, infectious disease control, chronic disease prevention and management, unintentional and intentional injury prevention, emergency law, global public health, environmental law, LGBT populations and the law, women’s reproductive health topics and more. Hypothetical case studies throughout illustrate how law impacts public health practice across a variety of settings and populations. Content on the transdisciplinary nature of public health practice spans topics such as law as a social determinant of health, the Health in All Policies initiative, legal epidemiology, law and ethics, and the scope of public health decision-making. Insightful and practical in its approach, Public Health Law: Concepts and Case Studies provides students and public health practitioners alike with knowledge and tools for utilizing the law to advance public health goals in the communities they serve. Key Features: Includes practical, real-world case studies illustrating the intersection of law and public health in many different contexts Highlights health equity and social justice issues relevant to chapter topics Explains legal frameworks and challenging legal concepts in easy to read prose Highlights relevant legal issues and considerations during the COVID-19 pandemic Includes access to the fully downloadable eBook as well as instructor ancillary materials such as Instructor’s Manual, PowerPoints, and Test Bank




Public Health Intelligence


Book Description

The first textbook on public health intelligence presents in depth the key concepts, methods, and objectives of this increasingly important competency. It systematically reviews types of evidence and data that comprise intelligence, effective techniques for assessment, analysis, and interpretation, and the role of this knowledge in quality health service delivery. The book’s learner-centered approach gives readers interactive context for mastering the processes of gathering and working with intelligence as well as its uses in informing public health decision-making. And its pragmatic framework will help establish standards for training, practice, and policy, leading to continued improvements in population health. This path-breaking resource: Offers a comprehensive, up-to-date introduction to public health intelligence, a core area of public health competency. Is suitable for both graduates’ and healthcare professionals’ training and development for national and international contexts. Helps readers apply theory to real-life scenarios, from multi-professional perspectives. Features activities, case studies, and discussion tasks for easy reader engagement. Anticipates and examines emerging developments in the field. Public Health Intelligence - Issues of Measure and Method is bedrock reading for postgraduate and advanced undergraduate students in public health, global health, health policy, health service management, nursing, medicine, statistics, epidemiology, quantitative methods, health intelligence, health inequality, and other allied healthcare fields. It is also a salient text for public health practitioners and health policymakers. "This book is a 'must-read' for students contemplating a career in Public Health or for anyone who is already in practice. The breadth of chapters from respected authors provide a detailed overview and critique of issues related to public health intelligence. A key strength of the book is that it is written with both students and practitioners in mind." Gurch Randhawa, PhD, FFPH, Professor of Diversity in Public Health & Director, Institute for Health Research, University of Bedfordshire, UK




Public Health Ethics: Cases Spanning the Globe


Book Description

This Open Access book highlights the ethical issues and dilemmas that arise in the practice of public health. It is also a tool to support instruction, debate, and dialogue regarding public health ethics. Although the practice of public health has always included consideration of ethical issues, the field of public health ethics as a discipline is a relatively new and emerging area. There are few practical training resources for public health practitioners, especially resources which include discussion of realistic cases which are likely to arise in the practice of public health. This work discusses these issues on a case to case basis and helps create awareness and understanding of the ethics of public health care. The main audience for the casebook is public health practitioners, including front-line workers, field epidemiology trainers and trainees, managers, planners, and decision makers who have an interest in learning about how to integrate ethical analysis into their day to day public health practice. The casebook is also useful to schools of public health and public health students as well as to academic ethicists who can use the book to teach public health ethics and distinguish it from clinical and research ethics.




Health Literacy in Clinical Practice and Public Health


Book Description

“Health literacy is the ultimate global currency of health and well-being. Without health literacy, medicine fails, public health fails, and people pay the cost for these failures with their lives. As this book goes to press, the world is confronted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Improving health literacy becomes increasingly important if we are to successfully confront the challenges that stress our systems of medicine and public health like never before.” (Richard H. Carmona, M.D., M.P.H., FACS, former Surgeon General of the United States, in his foreword to this book.) Two years ago, HTI published the book Health Literacy: New Directions in Research, Theory and Practice. Together with that earlier volume, this book: Health Literacy in Clinical Practice and Public Health: New Initiatives and Lessons Learned at the Intersection with other Disciplines, strives to enumerate and expand our understanding of the multidisciplinary connections which underpin the field of health literacy. The book’s balance between research and practice is a response to the feedback the editors received about the previous publication, which focused more on HL theory and research. With reports of specific health literacy research initiatives and interventions, particularly in clinical practice and public health, the book covers contemporary health literacy research and practice and is divided into three sections. Section one explores health literacy’s capacity to foster progress in clinical practice and public health; section two provides insights into health literacy initiatives and lessons learned from diverse healthcare stakeholders; and section three examines health literacy’s similarities with – and differences from – related health research disciplines. The book sets the practice and research of health literacy on an evidence-based, thoughtful, effective, efficient, and applied course. As Dr Richard Carmona says in his foreword: “It is enthusiastically recommended for all health and medical practitioners and researchers.”




The Cult and Science of Public Health


Book Description

In contemporary manifestations of public health rituals and events, people are being increasingly united around what they hold in common--their material being and humanity. As a cult of humanity, public health provides a moral force in society that replaces 'traditional' religions in times of great diversity or heterogeneity of peoples, activities and desires. This is in contrast to public health's foundation in science, particularly the science of epidemiology. The rigid rules of 'scientific evidence' used to determine the cause of illness and disease can work against the most vulnerable in society by putting sectors of the population, such as underrepresented workers, at a disadvantage. This study focuses on this tension between traditional science and the changing vision articulated within public health (and across many disciplines) that calls for a collective response to uncontrolled capitalism and unremitting globalization, and to the way in which health inequalities and their association with social inequalities provides a political rhetoric that calls for a new redistributive social programme. Drawing on decades of research, the author argues that public health is both a cult and a science of contemporary society.




Environmental Health and Housing


Book Description

The second edition of Environmental Health and Housing has been completely updated to cover the contemporary issues in public health that have emerged in recent years. With a theory and practice approach to public health, this edition focuses more on population health, health protection and improvement, and inter-agency approaches to effective intervention in housing and health through evidence-based practice. It provides the ideal introduction to the area, covering policy and strategy in housing, housing and inequality, housing inclusion, and the public health agenda. It provides a renewed focus on research into evidence-based housing and health issues, which have become subjects of growing international interest in recent years. This edition includes more case studies, reflection, and a greater emphasis on wider living environments. It also includes major pieces of new legislation, most notably the Housing Act 2004 and the Housing and Planning Act 2016, as well as related regulations.