Public health and preventive medicine Books

Book SynopsisIn 2009, malaria infected an estimated 225 million people and killed 781,000 people, most of whom, were children under the age of five in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the current burden of disease, malaria is preventable and treatable. Congress has increasingly recognised malaria as an important foreign policy issue, and the United States has become a major player in the global response to the disease. The 112th Congress will likely debate the appropriate funding levels and optimum strategy for addressing the continued challenge of global malaria. This book outlines basic facts related to global malaria, including characteristics of the epidemic and U.S. legislation, programs, funding and partnerships related to the global response to malaria.

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Book SynopsisThe growing cost of brand-name prescription drugs can be a burden on patients, payers and providers of health care, particularly when price increases are large and occur suddenly. Controlling rising prescription drug prices helps to ensure that patients can afford medically necessary and sometimes life-saving medication, and to moderate costs for hospitals and third-party payers such as insurance plans and state and federal governments. This book examines prescription drug pricing costs and control concerns with a focus on extraordinary price increases for brand-name prescription drugs, as well as the characteristics and factors that contributed to this price increase.

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Book SynopsisThis book presents current research in the study of the health effects, psychological aspects and cessation techniques of smoking. Topics discussed in this compilation include the vascular morphological changes related to smoking; the physiological consequences of smoking cessation benefits for the respiratory and cardiovascular systems; how weather might affect smoking related health behaviours; adolescent smoking and health research and predictors of smoking cessation in a population of pregnant smokers.

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Book SynopsisMercury occurs naturally in the environment and exists in several forms. Elemental mercury, also known as metallic of liquid mercury, is a unique metal that forms a dense, silvery liquid at room temperature. The liquid can disperse and coalesces into small, shiny droplets. These unusual properties attract the interest of children, increasing their propensity to play with mercury. Mercury vapour is readily absorbed by the lungs, making inhalation of elemental mercury the exposure route of greatest concern. The health effects that may result from mercury vary with the magnitude, dose, and duration of exposure. This book examines and identifies the common sources of elemental mercury exposure in children and describes the location, demographics, and proportion of children exposed or potentially exposed to elemental mercury in the United States.

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Book SynopsisThis book is a compilation of research summaries from a number of different focuses in the field of chemistry research.

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Book SynopsisThe early years in the life of a child are critical for cognitive, social and emotional development. It is therefore important that we make sure that children grow up in an environment where their social, emotional and educational needs are met. Children who grow up in an environment where their developmental needs are not met are at risk for compromised health, well-being and sometimes developmental delays. Society must therefore work to ensure that children develop in safe, loving and secure environments. This yearbook compiles the work done in 2008 with a broad research agenda on a global basis, addressing questions ranging from policy to practice, and spanning the developmental spectrum from human genetics, infancy and early childhood, to adolescence and adulthood.

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Book SynopsisClostridium Difficile is a gram-positive anaerobic, spore-forming bacterium involved in antibiotic-associated diarrhea and colitis, which is developed after administration of antibiotics. C. difficile is nosocomially transmissible via hospital staff and contaminated environmental surface, as well between patients. C. difficile infection results in a broad spectrum of disease ranging from mild diarrhea to severe life-threatening condition. Colonic injury and inflammation are caused by the two types of toxins: toxin A and B produced by the bacteria. This book the occurrence of and treatment options for clostridium difficile among patients who develop this condition.

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Book SynopsisPrenatal alcohol exposure has been directly implicated in a wide range of deficits that adversely influence the development of affected individuals. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) is an umbrella term referring to a continuum of effects that occur in individuals who were prenatally exposed to alcohol. FASD is a permanent birth defect, and a leading cause of mental retardation and developmental delay. This book gathers the latest research in the study of pregnancy and alcohol consumption from authors around the globe, including the biochemistry of prenatal alcohol exposure; research on interventions to prevent alcohol consumption during pregnancy; medico-legal considerations concerning foetal alcohol spectrum disorders; life as an adult with foetal alcohol syndrome; and biological markers of exposure of the foetus to alcohol during pregnancy.

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Book SynopsisThis book discusses how the current health insurance market structure affects the two policy goals of expanding health insurance coverage and containing health care costs. Concerns about concentration in health insurance markets are linked to wider concerns about the cost, quality, and availability of health care. The market structure of the health insurance and hospital industries may have contributed to rising health care costs and deteriorating access to affordable health insurance and health care. Many features of the health insurance market and the ways it links to other parts of the health care system can hinder competition, lead to concentrated markets, and produce inefficient outcomes.

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Book SynopsisHealth care seeks to diagnose, treat, and improve the physical and mental well-being of all Americans. Across the lifespan, health care helps people stay healthy, recover from illness, live with chronic disease or disability, and cope with death and dying. Quality health care delivers these services in a way that is safe, timely, patient centred, efficient, and equitable. Unfortunately, Americans too often do not receive care that they need, or they receive care that causes harm. This book examines the status of health care quality in the United States, targets where improvement is most needed, and explores how the quality of health care delivered to Americans is changing over time.

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Book SynopsisSelenium (Se) is an essential trace element of fundamental importance to health, primarily due to its antioxidant activity. Selenium has chemoprotective, anti-inflammatory, and antiviral properties and is related to enhancing immunity, controlling gastrointestinal, and reducing age-related disorders. In this book, the authors present current research in the study of the sources, functions and health effects of selenium. Topics discussed include selenium biorhythms and hormonal regulation; the physiological role of selenium; selenium supplementation of diet effects on antioxidant activity and protects against antibiotic resistance and avian influenza in poultry; selenium in critical illness and tropical diseases; products of animal origin as a source of Se in the human diet; selenium in food materials and stress signaling and proapoptotic pathways induced by selenite in malignant coloncytes.

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Book SynopsisIn 2006, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigated companies selling direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests and testified that these companies made medically unproven disease predictions. Although new companies have since been touted as being more reputable, experts remain concerned that the test results mislead consumers. This book examines the genetic tests currently on the market; the misleading test results themselves; the deceptive marketing techniques utilized; and other questionable practices.

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Book SynopsisThis book provides a brief overview of GINA, an overview of relevant PPACA and GINA provisions relating to the provision of health insurance through the private market and the implementation of employer wellness programs, and statutory analysis of the potential interactions between the related provision in both laws.

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Book SynopsisAbout half of the seafood imported into the U.S. comes from farmed fish (aquaculture). Fish grown in confined aquacultured areas can have bacterial infections, which may require farmers to use drugs like antibiotics. The residues of some drugs can cause cancer and antibiotic resistance. Additionally, the deliberate substitution or addition of harmful ingredients in food and drugs, specifically melamine in pet food and oversulfated chondroitin sulphate in the blood thinner heparin, have caused public health crises in recent years. This book examines the FDA''s efforts to improve oversight and protection of imported seafood; and focuses on enhancing efforts to detect and prevent economic adulteration of food and medical products that could affect the public health.

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Book SynopsisIn the year 2010, the new "International Journal of Child and Adolescent Health" was begun under the auspices of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Israel, in collaboration with Nova Science Publishers in New York, in order to facilitate an outlet for peer-reviewed papers in the areas of both child and adolescent health and human development. The editors hoped that there would be an international interest in such a new journal, and they hoped to receive good-quality reviews and original papers in these areas. This in fact happened, and in this yearbook they have gathered papers from the year 2011. This book discusses recent advances in child and adolescent health with research findings published in the year 2011.

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Book SynopsisIn the year 2011, the new "International Journal of Child and Adolescent Health" was begun under the auspices of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Israel, in collaboration with Nova Science Publishers in New York, in order to facilitate an outlet for peer-reviewed papers in the areas of both child and adolescent health and human development. The editors hoped that there would be an international interest in such a new journal, and they hoped to receive good-quality reviews and original papers in these areas. This in fact happened, and in this yearbook they have gathered papers for the year 2012. This book discusses recent advances in child and adolescent health with research findings to be published in the year 2012.

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Book SynopsisThis book is devoted to a theme of public health reaching out to communities of practice/engaging communities in new public health endeavours/community-scientist collaborations. The authors sought chapters that fit the theme and were either quantitative or qualitative research, program descriptions, or theoretical reviews of public health issues. Thus, this book contains both quantitative and qualitative research papers, programmatic and theoretical papers on applied public health issues. A range of topics are included from violence and behavioural problems to nutrition, cancer survival, deinstitutionalisation, intellectual disability and child maltreatment.

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Book SynopsisThis book features 17 chapters from scientists and clinicians around the world using methods at the bench, bedside and at the population level to prevent suicide. At the bedside, clinicians are exploring the use of motivational interviewing for the treatment of patients with active suicidal ideation. Prevention efforts are being developed and implemented to assess suicide risk and prevent attempts in specific patient groups, such as older adults and those with traumatic brain injury or substance use. This book also discusses suicide risk and prevention attempts by community based participatory research programs; the U.S. government and the field of economics.

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Book SynopsisAIDS and tuberculosis (TB) have complex health and societal determinants with large impacts. World-wide, the burden of these infectious diseases are huge, especially in the 22 countries with a high TB burden, where more than 80% of TB world-wide occurs and in sub-Saharan Africa, where 67% of the world''s HIV/AIDS cases occurred. Despite different ways of transmission and the fact that several separate national programs often exist, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS are linked. They are often affecting similar population groups (e.g. vulnerable and other minorities groups) and HIV is the most potent risk factors in increasing the risk of progression from latent TB infection (LTBI) to disease among the two billions individuals estimated with LTBI world-wide, while the relative risk of HIV is over 20. Therefore, it is crucial to combine and co-ordinate the efforts when addressing TB and HIV issues. Diverse responses have been developed, both at international and country levels for tackling the different health and social components of these diseases.

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Book SynopsisIn this Public Health Yearbook 2011 the authors will touch upon several topics like health risk communication, translational research, primary care, AIDS, tuberculosis, smoking, alcohol and drug screening and finally in the last section discuss primary health care development. Health risk communication deals with planned or unplanned communication to the public about the nature, impact and management of a wide array of health threats, such as cancer, HIV/AIDS or influenza pandemics. Current important research questions are raised and this book provides several comprehensive up-to-date reviews on important public health areas. World-wide partnerships, collaborations and communications between professionals and society so that new kinds of knowledge and knowledge networks can be developed.

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Book SynopsisReducing emissions from diesel engines is one of the most important public health challenges facing the country. Despite the EPA''s stringent diesel engine and fuel standards taking effect over the next decade, the 20 million engines already in use will continue to emit large amounts of nitrogen oxide and particulate matter, both of which will contribute to serious public health problems for years to come. Fortunately, a variety of cost-effective technologies can dramatically reduce harmful emissions, save fuel, and help our nation meet its clean air and sustainability goals. This book analyses the cost-effectiveness of various diesel emission reduction strategies, wherein the EPA compares the amount of federal grant funds used, to the lifetime tons reduced, to evaluate the effectiveness of federal investments in spurring diesel emission reductions.

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Book SynopsisHealth officials monitor and investigate food-borne illness in a number of ways. Surveillance is used to track trends in the incidence of several common bacterial and parasitic food-borne illnesses. Tracking of outbreaks of food-borne illness helps improve approaches to investigation. Genetic "fingerprinting" is also used to identify infections from a common source, including large multistate outbreaks. Collectively, these tools shed light on the burden of food-borne illness in the U.S., and ways to decrease it. This book examines several systems to monitor food-borne illnesses, discussing their strengths and the gaps that remain in understanding the burden of food-borne illness in the United States, with a focus on E. coli and salmonella.

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Book SynopsisThis book provides up-to-date evidence-based information on why and how to implement exercise intervention in the treatment of obesity. It starts with a description of the epidemiology of obesity, how to execute pre-participation screening in the obese, and the impact of caloric intake restriction vs exercise training in obese subjects. Next, a detailed description of exercise physiology in obesity is provided, followed by motivation techniques, the impact of training modalities on adipose tissue mass loss, and an exploration of factors related to the heterogeneity of adipose tissue mass loss in the obese when following exercise interventions. In final, the impact of emerging concepts in current exercise prescription for the obese, such as exercise in fasting condition, is covered. This book is dedicated to healthcare professionals and researchers dealing with obesity patients participating in exercise interventions. Moreover, this book could be a support to anyone with great interest for exercise physiology and exercise therapy in obesity.

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Book SynopsisThis book aims to present some fundamental pillars that must be taken into account for the design and construction of a medical record system. The work does not claim to be exhaustive, as the spirit of the book is to propose to reason out on some issues that have to be considered as the main features to take in consideration in the design and deployment of medical record systems, trying to bring positive issues to the general discussion. The first challenge has been to face the issues proposed in a co-productive way, in which the point of views of different actors (technicians, doctors, policy makers) are harmonised in shared visions, where the requirements that must be posed and considered become opportunities and challenges to overcome, also offering different shared solutions based on technology, organisational changes, medical actions and workflow in a unitary way.

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Book SynopsisOver the years, Congress has authorized and the federal government has administered programs to provide food to the hungry and to other vulnerable populations in this country. This book provides an overview of hunger and food insecurity along with the related network of programs. Evaluating trends in hunger and in our nation is crucial to understanding if the efforts to prevent hunger are working and in recognizing if there are particular vulnerable populations that need assistance.

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Book SynopsisThe World Health Organization defines health promotion "as the process of enabling people to increase control over and to improve, their health". It moves beyond a focus on individual behaviour towards a wide range of social and environmental interventions. Discussions on how to define health promotion already emerged in the 1970s from the Lalonde report in Canada, which contained a health promotion strategy "aimed at informing, influencing and assisting both individuals and organisations so that they will accept more responsibility and be more active in matters affecting mental and physical health". Health promotion and health service, using a socio-ecological approach, has been effective to promote mental and physical health, and improve social functioning and social support in a range of population groups. A socio-ecological approach addresses the importance of the interaction between individual level characteristics, families, institutions, and community support to promote health to an optimal level. There is increasing evidence to indicate promoting resilience at both the individual and organisation levels is important to help individuals cope with daily stress challenges, and buffer the adverse effects of distress, abuse and neglect, psychological traumatic events, and disease. The key concepts of resilience promotion is structured around self-esteem, self-efficacy, optimism, goal orientation, autonomy, and the ability to seek social and environmental support. These concepts play an important role in improving quality of life, chronic disease conditions, increasing exercise levels, and reduction of risk health behaviours.

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Book SynopsisBook & CD. Coal mine dust is one of the most serious occupational hazards in the coal mining industry, and overexposure can cause coal workers'' pneumoconiosis (CWP) and a number of other lung diseases, collectively referred to a black lung disease. CWP has been the underlying or contributing cause of death for more than 75,000 coal miners since 1968. This book provides an overview of key studies, background history and health reviews on occupational exposure to respirable coal mine dust.

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Book SynopsisClinical, experimental and epidemiological studies suggest that chronic diseases may have their origin during early life and that early nutrition could be a key factor. New DNA technologies have been applied to evaluate possible long-term changes after exposure to famine in early life. These new instruments may clarify possible biological mechanisms linking early-life nutritional insults to health in adulthood. This book presents a state of the art overview of possible mechanisms for nutritional programming in relation to changes in dietary patterns. It also provides examples of nutrition deprivation in various famine settings around the world, mostly during conditions of war or political strife, and of the short and long-term outcomes after nutrition deprivation in these populations. This book includes contributions from many disciplines and represents the most comprehensive summary to date of long-term health and economic outcomes related to specific famines. The book is intended for those who are interested in the early origins of health and disease from a biological perspective, and those who want to know more about the long-term social, epidemiological and demographic consequences of specific famines in modern history.

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Book SynopsisWe know that taking steps now to prevent disease before it starts is crucial to keeping people healthier, living longer, and reducing health care costs. Yet, health systems around the globe continue to focus more attention and devote enormous resources on medical services to treat illnesses and injuries after the fact rather than taking steps to prevent them from occurring in the first place. Each of the articles presented in this book are examples of innovative community efforts that take a step back from the common practice of merely treating medical conditions, and instead implement effective prevention strategies that address the underlying conditions that lead to death, illness, injury, and health inequities. This book provides a glimpse into some public health prevention projects being carried out in diverse communities around the globe. Each chapter offers details about a unique problem faced within a community, the prevention strategies and partnerships that were developed, and the results that were achieved.

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Book SynopsisNearly 20% of Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 and over who were admitted to a hospital in 2005 were readmitted within 30 days following their initial discharge. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission estimated that these readmissions cost the Medicare program as much as $15 billion per year and that perhaps as much as two-thirds of these readmissions may be preventable. This book provides an overview on the subject of hospital readmissions with a focus on the complexities, reduction efforts and analyses of hospital-acquired conditions. Hospital readmissions are associated with a number of factors and are not necessarily attributable to problems with the quality of patient care, but strong evidence indicates specific interventions to better manage care transitions at the time of hospital discharge could reduce readmissions for certain conditions.

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Book SynopsisThe fundamental purpose of a health insurance exchange is to provide a structured marketplace for the sale and purchase of health insurance. The authority and responsibilities of an exchange may vary, depending on statutory or other requirements for its establishment and structure. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires health insurance exchanges to be established in every state by January 1, 2014. ACA provides certain requirements for the establishment of exchanges, while leaving other choices to be made by the states. This book outlines the required minimum functions of exchanges, and explains how exchanges are expected to be established and administered under ACA. The coverage offered through exchanges is discussed, as are how the exchanges will interact with selected other ACA provisions.

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