A Life Course Approach to Chronic Disease Epidemiology


Book Description

From reviews of the previous edition:'We still have much to learn if disease patterns are to be explained by taking a life course approach... this book provides strong arguments for this approach... the book is a highly qualified starting point for the debate... it will remain a useful summary of pioneer research of huge potential importance for public health.' -Epidemiology'This is not just another epidemiology textbook. It is essential reading for anyone with an active mind who is interested in public health.' -Journal of Public Health Medicine'A truly exciting and extremely informative endeavour for anyone interested in the determinants of human health and disease. This discussion is at the core of current public health issues.' -European Journal of Public Health'The conclusion is of major importance to public health policy. It reinforces the need for a life course strategy, with attention being paid to the mother, baby, child adolescent, and elderly person.' -BMJ'Provokes thought about the origins of chronic diseases, suggests new approaches to identifying particular susceptible individuals and encourages the identification of optimal points in the life course for possible preventive interventions.' -Chronic Diseases in CanadaThe first edition in 1997 of A life course approach to chronic disease epidemiology became a classic text for epidemiological and public health researchers interested in the childhood origins of adult chronic disease. Since then the new field of life course epidemiology has expanded rapidly, attracting the interest not only of academics across the health and social sciences but also policy makers, funding bodies, and the general public. Its purpose is to study how biological and social factors during gestation, childhood, adolescence and earlier adult life independently, cumulatively and interactively influence later life health and disease.Contributors to this fully revised second edition capture the excitement of the developing field and assess the latest evidence regarding sources of risk to health across the life course and across generations. The original chapters on life course influences on cardiovascular disease, diabetes, blood pressure, respiratory disease and cancer have been updated and extended. New chapters on life course influences on obesity, biological ageing and neuropsychiatric disorders have been added. Life course explanations for disease trends and for socioeconomic differentials in disease risk are given more attention in this new edition, reflecting recent developments in the field. The section on policy implications has been expanded, assessing the role of interventions to improve childhood social circumstances, as well as interventions to improve early growth. Emerging new research themes and the theoretical and methodological challenges facing life course epidemiology are highlighted.Readership: Epidemiologists, public health researchers, public health policy makers for developed and developing countries, sociologists and biologists, psychiatrists and social and chronic disease epidemiologists




Fair Society, Healthy Lives


Book Description




Handbook of Global Health


Book Description

Global health is a rapidly emerging discipline with a transformative potential for public policy and international development. Emphasizing transnational health issues, global health aims to improve health and achieve health equity for all people worldwide. Its multidisciplinary scope includes contributions from many disciplines within and beyond the health sciences, including clinical medicine, public health, social and behavioral sciences, environmental sciences, economics, public policy, law and ethics. This large reference offers up-to-date information and expertise across all aspects of global health and helps readers to achieve a truly multidisciplinary understanding of the topics, trends as well as the clinical, socioeconomic and environmental drivers impacting global health. As a fully comprehensive, state-of-the-art and continuously updated, living reference, the Handbook of Global Health is an important, dynamic resource to provide context for global health clinical care, organizational decision-making, and overall public policy on many levels. Health workers, physicians, economists, environmental and social scientists, trainees and medical students as well as professionals and practitioners will find this handbook of great value.




Handbook of Active Ageing and Quality of Life


Book Description

This handbook presents an overview of studies on the relationship of active ageing and quality of life. It addresses the new challenges of ageing from the paradigm of positive ageing (active, healthy and successful) for a better quality of life. It provides theoretical perspectives and empirical studies, including scientific knowledge as well as practical experiences about the good ageing and the quality of later life around the world, in order to respond to the challenges of an aged population. The handbook is structured in 4 sections covering theoretical and conceptual perspectives, social policy issues and research agenda, methods, measurement instrument-scales and evaluations, and lastly application studies including domains and geographical contexts. Chapter 5 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com./div




Handbook of Life Course Health Development


Book Description

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. ​This handbook synthesizes and analyzes the growing knowledge base on life course health development (LCHD) from the prenatal period through emerging adulthood, with implications for clinical practice and public health. It presents LCHD as an innovative field with a sound theoretical framework for understanding wellness and disease from a lifespan perspective, replacing previous medical, biopsychosocial, and early genomic models of health. Interdisciplinary chapters discuss major health concerns (diabetes, obesity), important less-studied conditions (hearing, kidney health), and large-scale issues (nutrition, adversity) from a lifespan viewpoint. In addition, chapters address methodological approaches and challenges by analyzing existing measures, studies, and surveys. The book concludes with the editors’ research agenda that proposes priorities for future LCHD research and its application to health care practice and health policy. Topics featured in the Handbook include: The prenatal period and its effect on child obesity and metabolic outcomes. Pregnancy complications and their effect on women’s cardiovascular health. A multi-level approach for obesity prevention in children. Application of the LCHD framework to autism spectrum disorder. Socioeconomic disadvantage and its influence on health development across the lifespan. The importance of nutrition to optimal health development across the lifespan. The Handbook of Life Course Health Development is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians/professionals, and graduate students in developmental psychology/science; maternal and child health; social work; health economics; educational policy and politics; and medical law as well as many interrelated subdisciplines in psychology, medicine, public health, mental health, education, social welfare, economics, sociology, and law.




Understanding Health Determinants


Book Description

This book assembles a wide range of explanatory perspectives on social inequalities in health. Everywhere in the world, those with less advantage die younger and suffer more illness than the wealthy. Decades of research have documented this reality and yet we lack a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms through which social circumstances ultimately influence the biological processes that lead to disease. Explanations have been proposed from various disciplines – economics, psychology, behavioral science, geography, and neuroscience – and each sheds light on parts of the overall process. But very few texts assemble these insights into an overall explanatory paradigm. Through a review of concepts and theories from a wide range of disciplines, the author outlines how these may be woven together to offer a more complete picture of how social influences 'get under the skin' to affect health and disease. As well as understanding individual health, the book assembles explanations for social disparities in health. It concludes with a proposal for a set of explanatory models that cross disciplinary boundaries. Topics explored include: Social Inequalities in Health Explanation and Causal Models for Social Epidemiology Social and Economic Theories to Explain Patterns of Disease Biological Pathways Linking Social Determinants to Health Theoretical Models of Health Behavior Work Environment and Health Social Networks, Social Support and Health Positive Influences on Health: Coping and Control The Relationship Between Personality and Health Understanding Health Determinants: Explanatory Theories for Social Epidemiology is a textbook for graduate students in epidemiology, health sciences, health policy, and psychology, as well as social science students who are studying health. It will also be of interest to general readers, and can serve as a reference for researchers in epidemiology and the health sciences who are planning studies of the social determinants of health. The book reviews theories that could be tested in such studies.




International and Life Course Aspects of COVID-19


Book Description

International and Life Course Aspects of COVID-19 describes the nuances and international variations of COVID-19 in different populations and age groups. This volume details those differences in chapters examining the effects of the virus at different life stages, including newborns, children, adolescents, and older populations. Consideration of the age-specific effects of COVID-19 on the brain are a major focus unique to this resource. International observations and global outcomes are also described. This volume is relevant for all clinicians working to ensure the best outcomes for patients with COVID-19 worldwide. - Examines COVID-19 symptoms and concerns according to age - Discusses outcomes related to global populations and differences observed in symptomatology and care - Focuses on the brain, with a look at developmental changes in pregnancy, newborns, childhood, and adolescence - Describes mental health impacts in the older populations - Features individual chapter introductions and summaries to provide a comprehensive introduction - Contains chapters with key facts, dictionary of terms, summary points, applications to other areas pertinent to each chapter, and policies and procedures




The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Inequalities and the Life Course


Book Description

Drawing upon perspectives from across the globe and employing an interdisciplinary life course approach, this handbook explores the production and reproduction of different types of inequality across a variety of social contexts. Inequalities are not static, easily measurable, and essentially quantifiable circumstances of life. They are processes which impact on individuals throughout the life course, interacting with each other, accumulating, attenuating, reproducing, or distorting themselves along the way. The chapters in this handbook examine various types of inequality, such as economic, gender, racial, and ethnic inequalities, and analyse how these inequalities manifest themselves within different aspects of society, including health, education, and the family, at multiple levels and dimensions. The handbook also tackles the global COVID-19 pandemic and its striking impact on the production and intensification of inequalities. The interdisciplinary life course approach utilised in this handbook combines quantitative and qualitative methods to bridge the gap between theory and practice and offer strategies and principles for identifying and tackling issues of inequality. This book will be indispensable for students and researchers as well as activists and policy makers interested in understanding and eradicating the processes of production, reproduction, and perpetuation of inequalities.




The SAGE Handbook of Social Studies in Health and Medicine


Book Description

With new chapters on key topics such as mental health, the environment, race, ethnicity and health, and pharmaceuticals, this new edition maintains its multidisciplinary framework and bridges the gap between health policy and the sociology of health. It builds upon the success of the first by encompassing a range of issues, studies, and disciplines. The broad coverage of topics in addition to new chapters present an engagement with contemporary issues, resulting in a valuable teaching aid. This second edition brings together a diverse range of leading international scholars with contributors from Australia, Puerto-Rico, USA, Guatemala, Germany, Sri Lanka, Botswana, UK, South Sudan, Mexico, South Korea, Canada and more. The second edition of this Handbook remains a key resource for undergraduates, post-graduates, and researchers across multidisciplinary backgrounds including: medicine, health and social care, sociology, and anthropology. PART ONE: Culture, Society and Health PART TWO: Lived Experiences PART THREE: Health Care Systems, Access and Use PART FOUR: Health in Environmental and Planetary Context