A global health catastrophe narrowly averted. A world unprepared for another outbreak. In December 2013, a young boy in a tiny West African village contracted the deadly Ebola virus. The virus spread to his relatives, then to neighbouring communities, then across international borders. The world's first urban Ebola outbreak quickly overwhelmed the global health system and threatened to kill millions. As we are currently seeing, in an increasingly interconnected world in which everyone is one or two flights away from New York or London or Beijing, a localized epidemic has become a pandemic. Ebola's spread through West Africa to Nigeria, the United Kingdom and the United States sounded global alarms that the next killer outbreak is right around the corner - and that the world is woefully unprepared to combat a new deadly disease. From the poorest villages of rural West Africa to the Oval Office itself, this book tells the story of a deadly virus that spun wildly out of control - and reveals the truth about how close the world came to a catastrophic global pandemic. It is a story that serves as a cautionary tale for the COVID-19 epidemic currently spreading throughout the world.

With our highly connected and interdependent world, the growing threat of infectious diseases and public health crisis has shed light on the requirement for global efforts to manage and combat highly pathogenic infectious diseases and other public health crisis on an unprecedented level. Such disease threats transcend borders. Reducing global threats posed by infectious disease outbreaks - whether naturally caused or resulting from a deliberate or accidental release - requires efforts that cross the disaster management pillars: mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. This book addresses the issues of global health security along 4 themes: Emerging Threats; Mitigation, Preparedness, Response and Recovery; Exploring the Technology Landscape for Solutions; Leadership and Partnership. The authors of this volume highlight many of the challenges that confront our global security environment today. These range from politically induced disasters, to food insecurity, to zoonosis and terrorism. More optimistically, the authors also present some advances in technology that can help us combat these threats. Understanding the challenges that confront us and the tools we have to overcome them will allow us to face our future with confidence.

Introductory Medical Statistics, now in its third edition, is an introductory textbook on basic statistical techniques. It is written for physicians, surgeons, radiation oncologists, medical physicists, radiographers, hospital administrators, medical statisticians in training, biochemists, and other professionals allied to medicine. It is suitable as a teaching text for clinicians working towards their professional examinations. It is also suitable for Maters degree courses in medical physics.
The third edition has been extensively revised and expanded to include:
Clinical trial design and analysis]
Multivariate analysis
Cox proportional hazards model
McNemar, Wicoxon, Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, Mantel-Haenszel, and Kappa tests
Kaplan-Meier survival rates
Sensitivity and Specificity
Specification of treatment success, cure, and quality of life
Risk specification
Case-control and cohort epidemiological studies
Glossary of terms
The major change has been the advent of personal computing, so people rely on the power of their machine, and its software to number crunch. What is missing is that the software may not use the appropriate statistical error standard - Dick Mould

Routine applications of advanced statistical methods on real data have become possible in the last ten years because desktop computers have become much more powerful and cheaper. However, proper understanding of the challenging statistical theory behind those methods remains essential for correct application and interpretation, and rarely seen in the medical literature. Modern Methods for Epidemiology provides a concise introduction to recent development in statistical methodologies for epidemiological and biomedical researchers. Many of these methods have become indispensible tools for researchers working in epidemiology and medicine but are rarely discussed in details by standard textbooks of biostatistics or epidemiology. Contributors of this book are experienced researchers and experts in their respective fields. This textbook provides a solid starting point for those who are new to epidemiology, and for those looking for guidance in more modern statistical approaches to observational epidemiology. Epidemiological and biomedical researchers who wish to overcome the mathematical barrier of applying those methods to their research will find this book an accessible and helpful reference for self-learning and research. This book is also a good source for teaching postgraduate students in medical statistics or epidemiology.

Provides a step-by-step approach to statistical procedures to analyze data and conduct research, with detailed sections in each chapter explaining SPSS(R) and Excel(R) applications This book identifies connections between statistical applications and research design using cases, examples, and discussion of specific topics from the social and health sciences. Researched and class-tested to ensure an accessible presentation, the book combines clear, step-by-step explanations for both the novice and professional alike to understand the fundamental statistical practices for organizing, analyzing, and drawing conclusions from research data in their field. The book begins with an introduction to descriptive and inferential statistics and then acquaints readers with important features of statistical applications (SPSS and Excel) that support statistical analysis and decision making. Subsequent chapters treat the procedures commonly employed when working with data across various fields of social science research. Individual chapters are devoted to specific statistical procedures, each ending with lab application exercises that pose research questions, examine the questions through their application in SPSS and Excel, and conclude with a brief research report that outlines key findings drawn from the results. Real-world examples and data from social and health sciences research are used throughout the book, allowing readers to reinforce their comprehension of the material. Using Statistics in the Social and Health Sciences with SPSS(R) and Excel(R) includes: Use of straightforward procedures and examples that help students focus on understanding of analysis and interpretation of findings Inclusion of a data lab section in each chapter that provides relevant, clear examples Introduction to advanced statistical procedures in chapter sections (e.g., regression diagnostics) and separate chapters (e.g., multiple linear regression) for greater relevance to real-world research needs Emphasizing applied statistical analyses, this book can serve as the primary text in undergraduate and graduate university courses within departments of sociology, psychology, urban studies, health sciences, and public health, as well as other related departments. It will also be useful to statistics practitioners through extended sections using SPSS(R) and Excel(R) for analyzing data. Martin Lee Abbott, PhD, is Professor of Sociology at Seattle Pacific University, where he has served as Executive Director of the Washington School Research Center, an independent research and data analysis center funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr. Abbott has held positions in both academia and industry, focusing his consulting and teaching in the areas of statistical procedures, program evaluation, applied sociology, and research methods. He is the author of Understanding Educational Statistics Using Microsoft Excel(R) and SPSS(R), The Program Evaluation Prism: Using Statistical Methods to Discover Patterns, and Understanding and Applying Research Design, also from Wiley.

This book introduces flood inundation area and flood risks assessment based on a comprehensive monitoring system using remote sensing and geographic information system technologies. Taking the 2011 flood disaster of Ayutthaya in Thailand as an example, it presents a flood intrusion zone identification method based on remote sensing technology, spatial information technology and geographic information system for flood disaster monitoring and early warning system. It introduces the study area and data, vegetation index, improved support vector machine and flood intrusion zone identification method. It also analyzes the flood remote sensing parameters and waterborne diseases, method of risk assessment of waterborne disease outbreak, waterborne disease outbreak risk monitoring based on backpropagation neural network and its expert system. It not only promotes a new interdisciplinary approach both in public health and space information technology, but also greatly supports decision makers in disaster reduction.

In diesem Open-Access-Tagungsband werden die Erfahrungen mit der Corona-Pandemie durch renommierte Forscherinnen und Forscher wissenschaftlich reflektiert. Neben dem gesellschaftlichen und politischen Umgang mit Covid-19, geht es um vergangene Pandemien sowie zukunftige Infektionsgefahren.Die Akademie der Wissenschaften in Hamburg veranstaltete im April 2022 das Symposium "Infektionen und Gesellschaft - was haben wir gelernt?". Im interdisziplinaren Diskurs ging es darum, die Bedrohung durch Infektionserreger zu eruieren und die Reaktionsmoeglichkeiten der Gesellschaft auszuloten. Das Symposium wurde von der Arbeitsgruppe "Infektionsforschung und Gesellschaft" der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Hamburg konzipiert.

This book examines statistical methods and models used in the fields of global health and epidemiology. It includes methods such as innovative probability sampling, data harmonization and encryption, and advanced descriptive, analytical and monitory methods. Program codes using R are included as well as real data examples. Contemporary global health and epidemiology involves a myriad of medical and health challenges, including inequality of treatment, the HIV/AIDS epidemic and its subsequent control, the flu, cancer, tobacco control, drug use, and environmental pollution. In addition to its vast scales and telescopic perspective; addressing global health concerns often involves examining resource-limited populations with large geographic, socioeconomic diversities. Therefore, advancing global health requires new epidemiological design, new data, and new methods for sampling, data processing, and statistical analysis. This book provides global health researchers with methods that will enable access to and utilization of existing data. Featuring contributions from both epidemiological and biostatistical scholars, this book is a practical resource for researchers, practitioners, and students in solving global health problems in research, education, training, and consultation.

Most human diseases come from nature, from pathogens that live and breed in non-human animals and are "accidentally" transmitted to us. Human illness is only the culmination of a complex series of interactions among species in their natural habitats. To avoid exposure to these pathogens, we must understand which species are involved, what regulates their abundance, and how they interact.
Lyme disease affects the lives of millions of people in the US, Europe, and Asia. It is the most frequently reported vector-borne disease in the United States; About 20,000 cases have been reported each year over the past five years, and tens of thousands more go unrecognized and unreported. Despite the epidemiological importance of understanding variable LD risk, such pursuit has been slow, indirect, and only partially successful, due in part to an overemphasis on identifying the small subset of 'key players' that contribute to Lyme disease risk, as well as a general misunderstanding of effective treatment options.
This controversial book is a comprehensive, synthetic review of research on the ecology of Lyme disease in North America. It describes how humans get sick, why some years and places are so risky and others not. It challenges dogma - for instance, that risk is closely tied to the abundance of deer - and replaces it with a new understanding that embraces the complexity of species and their interactions. It describes why the place where Lyme disease emerged - coastal New England - set researchers on mistaken pathways. It shows how tiny acorns have enormous impacts on our probability of getting sick, why biodiversity is good for our health, why living next to a small woodlot is dangerous, and why Lyme disease is an excellent model system for understanding many other human and animal diseases. Intended for an audience of professional and student ecologists, epidemiologists, and other health scientists, it is written in an informal style accessible also to non-scientists interested in human health and conservation.

Students and researchers in the health sciences are faced with greater opportunity and challenge than ever before. The opportunity stems from the explosion in publicly available data that simultaneously informs and inspires new avenues of investigation. The challenge is that the analytic tools required go far beyond the standard methods and models of basic statistics. This textbook aims to equip health care researchers with the most important elements of a modern health analytics toolkit, drawing from the fields of statistics, health econometrics, and data science. This textbook is designed to overcome students' anxiety about data and statistics and to help them to become confident users of appropriate analytic methods for health care research studies. Methods are presented organically, with new material building naturally on what has come before. Each technique is motivated by a topical research question, explained in non-technical terms, and accompanied by engaging explanations and examples. In this way, the authors cultivate a deep ("organic") understanding of a range of analytic techniques, their assumptions and data requirements, and their advantages and limitations. They illustrate all lessons via analyses of real data from a variety of publicly available databases, addressing relevant research questions and comparing findings to those of published studies. Ultimately, this textbook is designed to cultivate health services researchers that are thoughtful and well informed about health data science, rather than data analysts. This textbook differs from the competition in its unique blend of methods and its determination to ensure that readers gain an understanding of how, when, and why to apply them. It provides the public health researcher with a way to think analytically about scientific questions, and it offers well-founded guidance for pairing data with methods for valid analysis. Readers should feel emboldened to tackle analysis of real public datasets using traditional statistical models, health econometrics methods, and even predictive algorithms. Accompanying code and data sets are provided in an author site: https://roman-gulati.github.io/statistics-for-health-data-science/

A NEW AND ESSENTIAL RESOURCE FOR THE PRACTICE OF EPIDEMIOLOGY AND PUBLIC HEALTH The CDC Field Epidemiology Manual is a definitive guide to investigating acute public health events on the ground and in real time. Assembled and written by experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as other leading public health agencies, it offers current and field-tested guidance for every stage of an outbreak investigation - from identification to intervention and other core considerations along the way. Modeled after Michael Gregg's seminal book Field Epidemiology, this CDC manual ushers investigators through the core elements of field work, including many of the challenges inherent to outbreaks: working with multiple state and federal agencies or multinational organizations; legal considerations; and effective utilization of an incident-management approach. Additional coverage includes: * Updated guidance for new tools in field investigations, including the latest technologies for data collection and incorporating data from geographic information systems (GIS) * Tips for investigations in unique settings, including healthcare and community-congregate sites * Advice for responding to different types of outbreaks, including acute enteric disease; suspected biologic or toxic agents; and outbreaks of violence, suicide, and other forms of injury For the ever-changing public health landscape, The CDC Field Epidemiology Manual offers a new, authoritative resource for effective outbreak response to acute and emerging threats. *** Oxford University Press will donate a portion of the proceeds from this book to the CDC Foundation, an independent nonprofit and the sole entity created by Congress to mobilize philanthropic and private-sector resources to support the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's critical health protection work. To learn more about the CDC Foundation, visit www.cdcfoundation.org.

The family of statistical models known as Rasch models started with a simple model for responses to questions in educational tests presented together with a number of related models that the Danish mathematician Georg Rasch referred to as models for measurement. Since the beginning of the 1950s the use of Rasch models has grown and has spread from education to the measurement of health status. This book contains a comprehensive overview of the statistical theory of Rasch models.Part 1 contains the probabilistic definition of Rasch models, Part 2 describes the estimation of item and person parameters, Part 3 concerns the assessment of the data-model fit of Rasch models, Part 4 contains applications of Rasch models, Part 5 discusses how to develop health-related instruments for Rasch models, and Part 6 describes how to perform Rasch analysis and document results.

"Statistical Estimation of Epidemiological Risk" provides coverage of the most important epidemiological indices, and includes recent developments in the field. A useful reference source for biostatisticians and epidemiologists working in disease prevention, as the chapters are self-contained and feature numerous real examples. It has been written at a level suitable for public health professionals with a limited knowledge of statistics.

Other key features include: Provides comprehensive coverage of the key epidemiological indices.Includes coverage of various sampling methods, and pointers to where each should be used.Includes up-to-date references and recent developments in the field.Features many real examples, emphasising the practical nature of the book.Each chapter is self-contained, allowing the book to be used as a useful reference source.Includes exercises, enabling use as a course text.

This is the first history of epidemics in South Africa, lethal episodes that significantly shaped this society over three centuries. Focusing on five devastating diseases between 1713 and today-smallpox, bubonic plague, \u201cSpanish influenza,\u201d polio, and HIV/AIDS-the book probes their origins, their catastrophic courses, and their consequences in both the short and long terms. The impacts of these epidemics ranged from the demographic-the \u201cSpanish flu,\u201d for instance, claimed the lives of 6 percent of the country's population in six weeks-to the political, the social, the economic, the spiritual, the psychological, and the cultural. Moreover, as each of these epidemics occurred at crucial moments in the country's history-such as during the South African War and World War I-the book also examines how these processes affected and were affected by the five epidemics. To those who read this book, history will not look the same again.

This book focuses on waterborne pathogens and significant diseases occurring along major rivers around the globe, including key examples like the Amazonas, Mekong River and Nile. Written by leading international experts, it offers unique insights into local riverine infection risks in times of global warming, and addressing these through advances in diagnosis, health management and the development of simple but effective control measures. It also sheds light on why former societies collapsed due to transmitted diseases during periods of climate change, droughts and floods, to help establish effective preventive measures for the future. The book appeals to a wide readership, from scientists in the field of parasitology, infectious diseases and epidemiology, to healthcare managers and general readers with an interest in pathogen spread along the largest rivers on earth. It particularly highlights past and current control mechanisms in times of global warming and assesses potential future health hazards.

This book is the first work to conduct the emergency logistics optimization problem under the epidemic environment (whether natural or man-made), which provides a new perspective for the application of optimization theory. In this book, the research methods involve epidemic dynamics, scenario-based emergency decision-making method, big data which combines the traditional and emerging technologies. The authors take epidemic outbreak as the research object and deeply integrate the epidemic spread model with the optimization model of emergency resource scheduling, which opens up a novel application area of operations research.

The Covid-19 pandemic has presented the world with unprecedented challenges. The effects on society have been comprehensive and affected every walk of life. In Pandemic Heroes and Heroines, Marguerite Bouvard offers the first book-length study of the pandemic's impact on one of the most vulnerable groups, front line medical workers charged with caring for the sick and providing general health and welfare.

This stimulating book has become a go-to text for understanding the role that social factors play in the experience of health and many diseases. This extensively revised and updated third edition offers the most compelling case yet that stress, poverty, unhealthy lifestyles, and unpleasant living and working conditions can all be directly associated with illness. The book continues to build on the paradigm shift that has been emerging in twenty-first-century medical sociology, which looks beyond individual explanations for health and disease. As the field has headed toward a fundamentally different orientation, William Cockerham's work has been at the forefront of these changes, and he here marshals evidence and theory for those seeking a clear and authoritative guide to the realities of the social determinants of health. Of particular note in the latest edition is new material on the relationship between gender and health, implications of the life course for health behavior, the health effects of social capital, and the emergence of COVID-19. This engaging introduction to social epidemiology will be indispensable reading for all students and scholars of medical sociology, especially those with the courage to confront the possibility that society really does make people sick.

In November 2019, a new strain of coronavirus appeared in Wuhan, China, and quickly spread across the world. Since then, the pandemic has exposed the brutal limits of care and health under capitalism. Pandemonium underscores the turning-points between neoliberalism and authoritarian government, crystallised by ineffective responses to the pandemic. In so doing, it questions capitalist understandings of order and disorder, of health and disease, and the new world borders which proliferate through distinctly capitalist definitions of risk and uncertainty. From the origins of the crisis at the crossroads of fossil-fuelled pollution and the privatisation of healthcare in China, Angela Mitropoulos follows the virus' spread as governments embraced reckless strategies of 'containment' and 'herd immunity.' Exoticist explanations of the pandemic and the recourse to quarantines and travel bans racialised the disease, while the reluctance to expand healthcare capacity displaced the risk onto private households and private wealth. Tracing iterations of borders through the histories of population theory, the political contract and epidemiology, Mitropoulos discusses the circuits of capitalist value in pharmaceuticals, protective equipment and catastrophe bonds. These and the treatment of populations as capitalist 'stock' in demands to 'reopen the economy' reveal a world where the very definition of 'the economy' and infrastructure are fundamentally shifting. Much will depend on how these are understood, and debts are reckoned, in the months and years to come.

Health Impact Assessment is a policy-support instrument and approach that seeks to assess the health impacts of projects, programmes and policies on population health. The ultimate goal of HIA is to systematically predict health impacts and subsequently inform the intersectoral decision- and policy-making processes of these impacts. Integrating Health Impact Assessment with the Policy Process examines how the process of integrating HIA with policy can take place. Introductory chapters outline the HIA process and provide a conceptual foundation for the book. Then, drawing from experiences of HIA practice and research globally, country specific experiences are presented to examine HIA's relationship with the policy process. Throughout the book checklists and learning points are provided to assist the readers' understanding of the concepts and examples discussed. This practical and conceptually-grounded guide represents a convergence of theory and practice from the disciplines of public health, environmental health and the social sciences, and will appeal to practitioners and professionals in these fields, as well as policy-makers, decision-makers, planners at regional and national government levels as well as academics, educators and students.

In recent years the number of innovative medicinal products and devices submitted and approved by regulatory bodies has declined dramatically. The medical product development process is no longer able to keep pace with increasing technologies, science and innovations and the goal is to develop new scientific and technical tools and to make product development processes more efficient and effective. Statistical Methods in Healthcare focuses on the application of statistical methodologies to evaluate promising alternatives and to optimize the performance and demonstrate the effectiveness of those that warrant pursuit is critical to success. Statistical methods used in planning, delivering and monitoring health care, as well as selected statistical aspects of the development and/or production of pharmaceuticals and medical devices are also addressed. With a focus on finding solutions to these challenges, this book: * Provides a comprehensive, in-depth treatment of statistical methods in healthcare, along with a reference source for practitioners and specialists in health care and drug development. * Offers a broad coverage of standards and established methods through leading edge techniques. * Uses an integrated, case-study based approach, with focus on applications. * Looks at the use of analytical and monitoring schemes to evaluate therapeutic performance. * Features the application of modern quality management systems to clinical practice, and to pharmaceutical development and production processes. * Addresses the use of modern Statistical methods such as Adaptive Design, Seamless Design, Data Mining, Bayesian networks and Bootstrapping that can be applied to support the challenging new vision. Practitioners in healthcare-related professions, ranging from clinical trials to care delivery to medical device design, as well as statistical researchers in the field, will benefit from this book.

This second edition of a bestseller, Nutrition in Public Health: Principles, Policies, and Practice focuses on the role of the federal government in determining nutrition policy and influencing practice. Beginning with an overview of public health principles, the book examines the application of nutritional policy to dietary guidance, health promotion, and the practice of public health nutrition. Highlights of New Coverage in the Second Edition: Legislation such as Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010; Agricultural Act of 2014 (Farm Bill); and proposals for the next Farm Bill Discussions of study designs, the SEED-SCALE model for health promotion, health disparities and health equity, worksite wellness, Let's Move!, and other initiatives Impact of the ACA on menu labeling policies, the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Act, and legislation regarding breastfeeding Examination of health disparities, demographic trends, and health literacy; sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression; and the role of social media in tailored health communications 2010 Dietary Guidelines with analysis of potential upcoming changes in 2015 Dietary Guidelines, Healthy Eating Index 2010, MyPlate, and Harvard Healthy Eating Plate Best Bones Forever! Campaign, text messaging for tailored health communication, and 4 Day Throw Away study assessing the use of social media for education regarding food safety The book explores the importance of nutrition as a component of the broad field of public health. The authors review the principles of public health nutrition, examining nutritional epidemiology and programs that deal with health disparities, weight control challenges, and the needs of special populations. The text addresses the practice of public health nutrition through tools for conducting a food and nutrition assessment of a community, designing and carrying out a social marketing campaign, and developing large and small grant proposals. Nutrition in Public Health provides an integrated view of nutrition needs and the policies and political mechanisms that affect the delivery of quality food and nutrition services. It gives students a thorough understanding of the federal government's role in determining nutrition policy and influencing practice.

The 2009 influenza pandemic, like all emerging infections, had unique characteristics and challenges. This book examines the epidemiology, clinical manifestations and outcome of the 2009 pandemic as compared to seasonal influenza and previous pandemics in both developed and developing countries. Consideration is given to the effectiveness of pre-pandemic planning in mitigating the severity of the disease and what can be done differently to lessen the impact of the next pandemic. As such, the book is designed to provide insight about what can be done going forward to further impact the morbidity and mortality due to both seasonal and pandemic influenza and many of these lessons can be applied to other emerging infections.There are many lessons to be learned from the 2009 pandemic. This book not only describes what happened in the 2009 pandemic, but also what can be done to better prepare for the next pandemic. Issues discussed include what components of the pandemic planning were effective and which were not. Additionally, the book describes research studies and policy changes that: 1) are needed to better predict the occurrence and severity of a pandemic; 2) improve prevention and treatment modalities; and 3) enable better communication with the public about actions they can take to protect themselves, families and communities.