In the Nation's Compelling Interest PDF Download

Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309166616
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
The United States is rapidly transforming into one of the most racially and ethnically diverse nations in the world. Groups commonly referred to as minorities-including Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, and Alaska Natives-are the fastest growing segments of the population and emerging as the nation's majority. Despite the rapid growth of racial and ethnic minority groups, their representation among the nation's health professionals has grown only modestly in the past 25 years. This alarming disparity has prompted the recent creation of initiatives to increase diversity in health professions. In the Nation's Compelling Interest considers the benefits of greater racial and ethnic diversity, and identifies institutional and policy-level mechanisms to garner broad support among health professions leaders, community members, and other key stakeholders to implement these strategies. Assessing the potential benefits of greater racial and ethnic diversity among health professionals will improve the access to and quality of healthcare for all Americans.

Author: Ichiro Kawachi
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781565848962
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
A revised edition of a renowned synthesis of the connections between social structures and well-being provides evidence that growing inequality is undermining health, welfare, and community life in America, in a volume that poses an urgent call for social justice as a necessary vehicle for the betterment of society. Reprint.

Author: Laurene A. Graig
Publisher: CQ Press
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
"Comparing the health care systems of six industrialized nations - the United States, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, and the United Kingdom - the author assesses the strengths and weaknesses of each system, discusses the latest in health care policy research, and suggests how the lessons learned by other nations might be applied in the United States to produce lasting health care reform."--BOOK JACKET.

Author: Karen Bartlett
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1786070693
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
‘Hope lies in dreams, in imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality.’ – Jonas Salk, inventor of one of the first successful polio vaccines No one will die of smallpox again… One of the worst killers ever is now consigned to history – perhaps the greatest humanitarian achievement of our age. Now polio, malaria and measles are on the hit list. Karen Bartlett tells the dramatic story of the history of eradication and takes us to the heart of modern campaigns. From high-tech labs in America to the poorest corners of Africa and the Middle East, we see the tremendous challenges those on the front lines face every day, and how they take us closer to a brave new world.

Author: Daniel P. Keating
Publisher: Guilford Press
ISBN: 9781572304550
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 428

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Book Description
Probing the effects of the social environment upon human development, this volume asks how we can best support the health and well-being of infants and children in an era of rapid economic and technological change. The book presents cogent findings on human development as both an individual and a population phenomenon. Topics covered include links between socioeconomic status, achievement, and health; the impact of early experience upon brain and behavioral development; and how schools and communities can develop new kinds of learning environments to enhance adaptation and foster intellectual growth. Synthesizing developmental, biological, and social perspectives, this volume will appeal to a broad interdisciplinary audience.

Author: Zaryab Iqbal
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 080477370X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Assessments of the costs of war generally focus on the financial, political, military, and territorial risks associated with involvement in violent conflict. Often overlooked are the human costs of war, particularly their effects on population well-being. In War and the Health of Nations, Zaryab Iqbal explores these human costs by offering the first large-scale empirical study of the relationship between armed conflict and population health. Working within the influential "human security" paradigm—which emphasizes the security of populations rather than states as the central object of global security—Iqbal analyzes the direct and indirect mechanisms through which violent conflict degrades population health. In addition to battlefield casualties, these include war's detrimental economic effects, its role in the creation of refugees and forced migration, and the destruction of societies' infrastructure. In doing so, she provides a comprehensive picture of the processes through which war and violent conflict affect public health and the well-being of societies in a cross-national context. War and the Health of Nations provides a conceptual and theoretical framework for understanding the influence of violent interstate and intrastate conflict on the quality of life of populations and empirically analyzes the war-and-health relationship through statistical models using a universal sample of states. The analyses provide strong evidence for the direct as well as the indirect effects of war on public health and offer important insights into key socio-economic determinants of health achievement. The book thus demonstrates the significance of population health as an important consequence of armed conflict and highlights the role of societal vulnerabilities in studies of global security.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309264146
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.

Author: Gavin Mooney
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1780320620
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Why, despite vast resources being expended on health and health care, is there still so much ill health and premature death? Why do massive inequalities in health, both within and between countries, remain? In this devastating critique, internationally renowned health economist Gavin Mooney places the responsibility for these problems firmly at the door of neoliberalism. Mooney analyses how power is exercised both in health-care systems and in society more generally. In doing so, it reveals how too many vested interests hinder efficient and equitable policies to promote healthy populations, while too little is done to address the social determinants of health. Instead, Mooney argues, health services and health policy more generally should be returned to the communities they serve. Taking in a broad range of international case studies - from the UK to the US, South Africa to Cuba - this provocative book places issues of power and politics in health care systems centre stage, making a compelling case for the need to re-evaluate how we approach health care globally.

Author: Anthony J. McMichael
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190262958
Category : Climate and civilization
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
When we think of "climate change," we think of man-made global warming, caused by greenhouse gas emissions. But natural climate change has occurred throughout human history, and populations have had to adapt to the climate's vicissitudes. Anthony J. McMichael, a renowned epidemiologist and a pioneer in the field of how human health relates to climate change, is the ideal person to tell this story. Climate Change and the Health of Nations shows how the natural environment has vast direct and indirect repercussions for human health and welfare. McMichael takes us on a tour of human history through the lens of major transformations in climate. From the very beginning of our species some five million years ago, human biology has evolved in response to cooling temperatures, new food sources, and changing geography. As societies began to form, they too adapted in relation to their environments, most notably with the development of agriculture eleven thousand years ago. Agricultural civilization was a Faustian bargain, however: the prosperity and comfort that an agrarian society provides relies on the assumption that the environment will largely remain stable. Indeed, for agriculture to succeed, environmental conditions must be just right, which McMichael refers to as the "Goldilocks phenomenon." Global warming is disrupting this balance, just as other climate-related upheavals have tested human societies throughout history. As McMichael shows, the break-up of the Roman Empire, the bubonic Plague of Justinian, and the mysterious collapse of Mayan civilization all have roots in climate change. Why devote so much analysis to the past, when the daunting future of climate change is already here? Because the story of mankind�s previous survival in the face of an unpredictable and unstable climate, and of the terrible toll that climate change can take, could not be more important as we face the realities of a warming planet. This sweeping magnum opus is not only a rigorous, innovative, and fascinating exploration of how the climate affects the human condition, but also an urgent call to recognize our species' utter reliance on the earth as it is.

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309452961
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 583

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Book Description
In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.