Public Health and Epidemiology

Most accounts of health and healthcare in Africa are written by foreigners. African Health Leaders: Making Change and Claiming the Future redresses the balance. Written by Africans, who have themselves led improvements in their own countries, this online resource discusses the creativity, innovation and leadership that has been involved tackling everything from HIV/AIDs, to maternal, and child mortality and neglected tropical diseases. It celebrates their achievements and shows how, over three generations, African health leaders are creating a distinctively African vision of health and health systems. It covers how African Health Leaders are claiming the future - in Africa, but also by sharing their insights and knowledge globally and contributing fully to improving health throughout the world, and illustrates how African leadership can enable foreign agencies and individuals working in Africa to avoid all those misunderstandings and misinterpretations of culture and context which lead to wasted efforts and frustrated hopes. It also addresses the need to tackle weak governance, corrupt systems and low expectations and sets out what Africa needs from the rest of the world in the spirit of global solidarity - not primarily in aid, but through investment, collaboration, partnership and co-development.Less

Behavioral Economics and Public Health is the first title to apply the groundbreaking insights of behavioral economics to the persisting problems of health behaviors and behavior change. In addition to providing a primer on the behavioral economics principles that are most relevant to public health, this title offers details on how these principles can be employed to mitigating the world's greatest health threats, including obesity, smoking, risky sexual behavior, and excessive drinking. With contributions from an international team of scholars from psychology, economics, marketing, public health, and medicine, this title is a trailblazing new approach to the most difficult and important problems of our time. Less

In recent years, there has been an explosion of research focused on using technology in healthcare, including Web and mobile health assessment and intervention tools, as well as smartphone sensors and smart environments for monitoring and promoting health behavior. This work has shown that technology-based therapeutic tools offer considerable promise for monitoring and responding to individuals’ health behavior in real time. They may extend the reach of clinicians or serve as stand-alone tools, may be cost-effective and offer countless opportunities for tailoring behavioral interventions that are optimally responsive to individuals’ needs and preferences. Technology may enable entirely new models of healthcare both within and outside of formal systems of care. This book defines the state of scientific research related to the development, experimental evaluation, and effective dissemination of technology-based therapeutic tools targeting behavioral health. It provides an overview of evidence-based approaches to harnessing technology in areas of substance use, mental health, diet and exercise, medication adherence, and chronic disease management. The book also defines the state of implementation research examining models for integrating technology-based behavioral healthcare systems to increase the quality and reach of evidence-based and cost-effective behavioral healthcare, and discusses public health and policy implications of this work. This book consists of contributions from an interdisciplinary group of authors who are leaders in fields of paramount importance to the arena of technology and behavioral health, including the science of behavior change, emerging technologies, health economics, novel methodologies and analytics, implementation science, regulation, privacy and security, and public policy.Less

Medical innovation as it stands today is fundamentally unsustainable. There is a widening gap between what biomedical research promises and its current impact in terms of patient benefit and health system improvement. This book highlights the global problem, analyses underlying causes, and provides powerful prescriptions for change to close the gap.It contrasts progress in biomedicine with other areas of science and technology, such as information technology, in which there are faster, more reliable returns for society from scientific advance. It questions whether society is right to expect so much from biomedicine and why we have become accustomed to such poor returns.It focuses on four specific ‘gaps in translation’ between bioscience breakthroughs and ultimate patient benefit, and explains how unhelpful mental models and differing perceptions of value, risk, and uncertainty contribute to stifling progress.Specific examples are examined, in which these bottlenecks have prevented promised progress (e.g. antibiotic-resistant infections), and others in which these barriers have been overcome, as a result of patient pressure (e.g. HIV treatment) or a sense of impending crisis (e.g. pandemic influenza).Less

Bridging the Gap details the role, lessons, and effectiveness of community health workers (CHWs) in bringing health care to underserved immigrant communities. Combining education, advocacy, and local cultural acumen, CHWs have proven successful in the United States and abroad, improving community health and establishing an evidence base for how CHW programs can work for immigrants. Based on a decade of in-depth evaluations from several immigrant health programs in New York City with complementary interviews with dozens of immigrants and CHWs, Bridging the Gap offers insights into how CHWs help immigrants overcome the obstacles to health care. The authors carefully distil first-hand lessons into recommendations for best practices in developing and utilizing effective CHW programs—insights that will be immediately useful to any community group, municipal agency, or health care organization.Less

Although urban living has accounted for being the lifestyle for more than half of the global population since 2010, nearly half are still living in a rural context. As pointed out by the United Nations as a backdrop of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (2016–2030), at least 1.8 billion people across the world still consumed faecally contaminated drinking water by 2015, 2.4 million lacked access to basic sanitation services such as toilets or latrines, and nearly 1,000 children died every day of preventable water and sanitation-related diarrhoeal diseases. Rural areas fare far worse: children are about 1.7 times more likely to die before their fifth birthday as those in urban areas. About 16% of the rural population do not use improved drinking water sources, compared to 4% of the urban population. About 50% of people living in rural areas lack improved sanitation facilities, compared to only 18% of people in urban regions. Far too many one-off rural on-site public health knowledge transfer projects fail to deliver long-term results. Theoretical understanding may be strengthened among non-governmental organization (NGO) practitioners and volunteers to support project planning, monitoring, and evaluation. Based on public health theories and illustrated by relevant examples, as well as the insights gained from the long-established CCOUC Ethnic Minority Health Project in China, this book introduces how health, emergency, and disaster preparedness education programmes could be organized in remote rural Asia, which could become a useful reference for organizers and volunteers of rural development projects.Less

This resource reviews the current status of cancer epidemiologic research and training — rationale, requisite infrastructure, methodologic principles, and illustrative examples in low- and middle-income countries — in order to facilitate future advances by trained health professionals. It summarizes and reviews research studies that are in progress concerning major prevalent cancers of the breast, uterine cervix, lung and bronchus, upper aerodigestive tract, stomach, liver, colon, and HIV-associated cancers. It also covers specific studies conducted in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and the Middle East, as well as studies in Australia, Europe, North America, and in populations that migrate from LMICs to developed countries. The result is a valuable resource for both program leaders as well as graduate and post-graduate students pursuing careers in international cancer epidemiologic research.Less

Expert public psychiatrists use case studies to share best practice strategies in this clinically oriented introduction to community mental health. Today, the majority of psychiatrists work with people who suffer not only from mental illness but also from poverty, trauma, social isolation, and discrimination. Psychiatrists cannot do this work alone but, instead, are part of teams of behavioral health workers navigating larger health care and social service systems. In an increasingly complex health care environment, mental health clinicians need to master systems-based practice in order to provide optimal care to their patients. The rapid development of public psychiatry training programs is a response to the learning needs of psychiatrists in an evolving system. This book begins with seven foundational principles of public psychiatry—recovery, trauma-informed care, integrated care, cultural humility, harm reduction, systems of care, and financing care—using cases to bring these concepts to life. Then, using a population health framework, cases are used to explore the typical needs of different age groups or vulnerable populations and to illustrate evidence-based/best practices that have been employed to meet these needs. Common to all of the chapters is a focus on the potential of each person, regardless of illness, to achieve personal goals, supported by a clinician who is also an advocate, activist, and leader.Less

Child Health: a Population Perspective provides students with a multifaceted overview of the importance of child health as a population health strategy. Child health considers the determinants, interventions, and policies that affect health outcomes for the youngest segment of our population. Child health also recognizes that investments in our nation’s young have implications for the future workforce as well as adult health outcomes. Child Health: a Population Perspective is a foundational text for training future leaders in maternal and child health. The book provides perspectives in three key areas: current issues facing children in the United States, theoretical concepts behind understanding child health, and practical approaches to address child health in practice, including case studies. The authors also provide a historical perspective of how child health has developed in this country, as well as the impact of immigration and a global view of child health internationally. The authors have created a core text for maternal and child health or pediatrics courses in schools of public health, medicine, and nursing. Undergraduate students, pediatric residents, maternal and child health fellows, and practitioners in the field can benefit from this comprehensive yet concise book.Less

It is every health professional’s responsibility to be able to identify and respond to child abuse. This book equips health professionals working with children with the knowledge to recognize at-risk children or those already suffering abuse. Child protection work is challenging both emotionally and strategically, and so practical advice on how to navigate the multidisciplinary processes involved is provided using many challenging cases and exercises. The realistic fictional cases aim to immerse readers in the scenario and challenge them on how to take action to safeguard the children involved. Real cases in which children suffered actual harm are also presented, and readers are taken through the learning points, recommendations, and subsequent changes in legislation. New challenges in child protection from trafficking, child sexual exploitation, gang violence, radicalization, and internet bullying and abuse are defined, and abuse resulting from cultural practices such as female genital mutilation, witchcraft and spirit possession, honour-based violence, and forced marriage is also covered. Advice is provided for those undertaking work in low-resource settings with non-government organizations and charities. Practical advice is offered on accurate documentation, writing police and court reports, talking to parents, and answering frequently asked questions. New gender-specific anatomically positioned body maps of infants, toddlers, young children, and teenagers are included to help improve medical record-keeping. The complicated safeguarding process is broken down into palatable and stimulating chunks that can be read in a few sittings or just dipped into for advice.Less