Prevention, Policy, and Public Health


Book Description

Prevention, Policy, and Public Health provides a basic foundation for students, professionals, and researchers to be more effective in the policy arena. It offers information on the dynamics of the policymaking process, theoretical frameworks, analysis, and policy applications. It also offers coverage of advocacy and communication, the two most integral aspects of shaping policies for public health.




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.




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.




Reducing the Odds


Book Description

Thousands of HIV-positive women give birth every year. Further, because many pregnant women are not tested for HIV and therefore do not receive treatment, the number of children born with HIV is still unacceptably high. What can we do to eliminate this tragic and costly inheritance? In response to a congressional request, this book evaluates the extent to which state efforts have been effective in reducing the perinatal transmission of HIV. The committee recommends that testing HIV be a routine part of prenatal care, and that health care providers notify women that HIV testing is part of the usual array of prenatal tests and that they have an opportunity to refuse the HIV test. This approach could help both reduce the number of pediatric AIDS cases and improve treatment for mothers with AIDS. Reducing the Odds will be of special interest to federal, state, and local health policymakers, prenatal care providers, maternal and child health specialists, public health practitioners, and advocates for HIV/AIDS patients. January




Health IT as a Tool for Prevention in Public Health Policies


Book Description

Health IT as a Tool for Prevention in Public Health Policies examines the current state of Health Information Technology (HIT) in the United States. It investigates the converging problems of chronic disease, societal welfare, childhood obesity, and the lack of healthcare for the economically disadvantaged in the U.S. It considers various providers of care for disadvantaged groups and outlines innovative public policy solutions to a wide range of community problems. The book starts by detailing the major problems the U.S. has faced with its healthcare system. Next, it describes current federal efforts to solve these problems and unveils novel solutions to these challenges. Each chapter examines a different technological solution that the U.S. is currently investing in and allocating time, resources, and energy to. Supplying a basic theoretical foundation on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, the book discusses the effects of geographic disparities and HIT at the meso, macro, and micro levels of society. It also demonstrates how individuals can use a range of HITs to improve prevention of health concerns, including mobile health apps, video games, self-management technologies, crowdsourcing, and other e-health technologies. The book describes HIEs, RHIOs, and NHIN and explains how they connect to Community Health Centers (CHCs). It also explains how CHCs can use HIT to improve care for the disadvantaged and Medicaid population. It includes a case study of electronic health literacy and cancer patients and another on how equipping private practice physicians with EMRs can help them tackle prevention and improve organizational functioning. The book concludes by providing a comparative perspective between the use of HIT in the U.S. and the United Kingdom and by suggesting the direction that the U.S. should take toward cloud-based solutions to its e-health infrastructure.




Evidence-Based Public Health


Book Description

There are at least three ways in which a public health program or policy may not reach stated goals for success: 1) Choosing an intervention approach whose effectiveness is not established in the scientific literature; 2) Selecting a potentially effective program or policy yet achieving only weak, incomplete implementation or "reach," thereby failing to attain objectives; 3) Conducting an inadequate or incorrect evaluation that results in a lack of generalizable knowledge on the effectiveness of a program or policy; and 4) Paying inadequate attention to adapting an intervention to the population and context of interest To enhance evidence-based practice, this book addresses all four possibilities and attempts to provide practical guidance on how to choose, carry out, and evaluate evidence-based programs and policies in public health settings. It also begins to address a fifth, overarching need for a highly trained public health workforce. This book deals not only with finding and using scientific evidence, but also with implementation and evaluation of interventions that generate new evidence on effectiveness. Because all these topics are broad and require multi-disciplinary skills and perspectives, each chapter covers the basic issues and provides multiple examples to illustrate important concepts. In addition, each chapter provides links to the diverse literature and selected websites for readers wanting more detailed information. An indispensable volume for professionals, students, and researchers in the public health sciences and preventative medicine, this new and updated edition of Evidence-Based Public Health aims to bridge research and evidence with policies and the practice of public health.




The New Public Health


Book Description

The New Public Health has established itself as a solid textbook throughout the world. Translated into 7 languages, this work distinguishes itself from other public health textbooks, which are either highly locally oriented or, if international, lack the specificity of local issues relevant to students' understanding of applied public health in their own setting. This 3e provides a unified approach to public health appropriate for all masters' level students and practitioners—specifically for courses in MPH programs, community health and preventive medicine programs, community health education programs, and community health nursing programs, as well as programs for other medical professionals such as pharmacy, physiotherapy, and other public health courses. - Changes in infectious and chronic disease epidemiology including vaccines, health promotion, human resources for health and health technology - Lessons from H1N1, pandemic threats, disease eradication, nutritional health - Trends of health systems and reforms and consequences of current economic crisis for health - Public health law, ethics, scientific d health technology advances and assessment - Global Health environment, Millennium Development Goals and international NGOs




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.




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.




A Population-Based Policy and Systems Change Approach to Prevent and Control Hypertension


Book Description

Hypertension is one of the leading causes of death in the United States, affecting nearly one in three Americans. It is prevalent in adults and endemic in the older adult population. Hypertension is a major contributor to cardiovascular morbidity and disability. Although there is a simple test to diagnose hypertension and relatively inexpensive drugs to treat it, the disease is often undiagnosed and uncontrolled. A Population-Based Policy and Systems Change Approach to the Prevention and Control Hypertension identifies a small set of high-priority areas in which public health officials can focus their efforts to accelerate progress in hypertension reduction and control. It offers several recommendations that embody a population-based approach grounded in the principles of measurement, system change, and accountability. The recommendations are designed to shift current hypertension reduction strategies from an individual-based approach to a population-based approach. They are also designed to improve the quality of care provided to individuals with hypertension and to strengthen the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's leadership in seeking a reduction in the sodium intake in the American diet to meet dietary guidelines. The book is an important resource for federal public health officials and organizations, especially the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as medical professionals and community health workers.