This book examines the many roles of families in their members' food access, preferences, and consumption. It provides an overview of factors - from micro- to macro-levels - that have been linked to food insecurity and discusses policy approaches to reducing food insecurity and hunger. In addition, it addresses the links between food insecurity and overweight and obesity. The book describes changes in the U.S. food environment that may explain increases in obesity during recent decades. It explores relationships between parenting practices and the development of eating behaviors in children, highlighting the importance of family mealtimes in healthful eating. The volume provides an overview of efforts to prevent or reduce obesity in children, with attention to minority populations and discusses research findings on targets for obesity prevention, including a focus on fathers as change agents who play a crucial, yet understudied, role in food parenting. The book acknowledges that with the current obesigenic environment in the United States and elsewhere around the world, additional and innovative efforts are needed to foster healthful eating behavior and orientations toward food in childhood and in families. This book is a must-have resource for researchers, professors, clinicians, professionals, and graduate students in developmental psychology, family studies, public health as well as numerous interrelated disciplines, including sociology, demography, social work, prevention science, educational policy, political science, and economics.

More than 50 years ago, President Kennedy gave an address to Congress that launched the community mental health movement in the U.S. This movement involved a vast and complex effort to replace the wholesale institutionalization of people with serious mental illnesses with community mental health centers, public education on mental illness, and prevention efforts. The mission and main thrust of this new movement, however, were quite simple: we would provide effective mental health treatment to people in their home communities and provide the conditions for them to have 'a life in the community.' Starting in the 1990s with Jim, a person who was homeless and initially refused help from outreach workers, Citizenship & Mental Health tells a 20-year story of practice, theory, and research to support the full participation of persons with mental illnesses who, in many cases, have also been homeless, have criminal charges in their past, and are poor. As the first of its kind, this book addresses the concept of citizenship as an applied theory for fulfilling the promise of the community mental health center movement. Citizenship is defined as a strong connection to the 5 R's of rights, responsibilities, roles, resources, and relationships that society offers to its members, and a sense of belonging that comes from others' recognition of one's valued membership in society. The citizenship model supports the strengths, hopes, and aspirations of people with mental illnesses to become neighbors, community members, and citizens.

'The Maternal Sepsis Intervention has had a profound impact on maternal mortality and antibiotic use whilst also reducing hospital costs. The Ministry of Health is keen to explore opportunities to extending the lessons learnt and integrate them in national policy-making.' -Dr. Richard Mugahi, Ministry of Health, Uganda. This open access book provides an accessible introduction to the mechanics of international development and global health text for policy-makers and students across a wide range of disciplines. Antimicrobial resistance is a major threat to the well-being of patients and health systems the world over. In fragile health systems so challenged, on a day-today basis, by the overwhelming burden of both infectious and non-communicable disease, it is easy to overlook the impacts of AMR. The Maternal Sepsis Intervention, focusing on a primary cause of maternal death in Uganda, demonstrates the systemic nature of AMR and the gains that can be made through improved Infection Prevention Control and direct engagement of laboratory testing in antibiotic prescribing.

This edited collection explores the multiple ways in which ethnography and health emerge and take form through the research process. There is now a plethora of disciplinary engagements with ethnography around the topic of health, including anthropology, sociology, geography, science and technology studies, and in health care professions such as nursing and occupational therapy. This dynamic and evolving landscape means ethnography and health are entangled in new and different ways, providing a timely opportunity to explore what these entanglements do and affect in the social production of knowledge. Rather than discussing the strengths (and limitations) of ethnography for engaging with health, the book asks: what does ethnography enable, make visible and possible for knowing and doing health in contemporary research settings and beyond?

This international edited volume is a rare look at cultural, economic and political forces that contribute to school violence. In light of the devastating events in US schools and the violence towards students and schools world-wide, the war on knowledge development in non/secular education is increasing at an alarming rate. This book offers an international perspective on violence from both K-12 to tertiary levels, parents, administrators-teachers-support staff and research scholars in a desire to understand the contextual issues surrounding violence and its impacts on the field of education. ELWB Scholars and practitioners hail from six continents propose historical to futuristic perspectives linking violence towards education and its inhabitants while framing future strategies to alter multinational fear mongering to the decline of knowledge generation for an informed citizenry.

This book assesses harmful effects of plastics on the environment and public health. Risk assessment of plastics is required to evaluate currently available treatment technologies and identify the significance of plastic pollution. This book covers background information concerning plastic pollution in the environment, sources and pathways of plastics, characterization and analysis of plastics in the environment, environmental risks of plastics, public health risk of plastics, life cycle approaches in assessing plastic pollution, preventive measures of plastic pollution, fate and transport of plastics, and summary and outlook. The content of the book focuses on assessment of risks of plastics (including nano- and micro-plastics) released into the environment, and it is designed to educate fundamental aspects of plastic materials, including potential risks to the public health and environment, approaches to assessing their harmful effects, prevention of plastic pollution, and environmentally sound technologies for recycling plastics and/or converting them into renewable energy sources. Readers, particularly those in the field of toxicology, materials, environmental policy, public health, and water treatment, benefit from this book's content and educational features, in perspectives of providing knowledge in the environmental field, namely the current status and technology developments for avoiding or minimizing plastic contamination, case studies used to assess environmental and public health risks of micro- and nano-plastics, and educational recommendations in resolving issues with global plastic pollution.

Population genomics has revolutionized various disciplines of biology including population, evolutionary, ecological and conservation genetics, plant and animal breeding, human health, medicine and pharmacology by allowing to address novel and long-standing questions with unprecedented power and accuracy. It employs large-scale or genome-wide genetic information and bioinformatics to address various fundamental and applied aspects in biology and related disciplines, and provides a comprehensive genome-wide perspective and new insights that were not possible before. These advances have become possible due to the development of new and low-cost sequencing and genotyping technologies and novel statistical approaches and software, bioinformatics tools, and models. Population genomics is tremendously advancing our understanding the roles of evolutionary processes, such as mutation, genetic drift, gene flow, and natural selection, in shaping up genetic variation at individual loci and across the genome and populations; improving the assessment of population genetic parameters or processes such as adaptive evolution, effective population size, gene flow, admixture, inbreeding and outbreeding depression, demography, and biogeography; resolving evolutionary histories and phylogenetic relationships of extant, ancient and extinct species; understanding the genomic basis of fitness, adaptation, speciation, complex ecological and economically important traits, and disease and insect resistance; facilitating forensics, genetic medicine and pharmacology; delineating conservation genetic units; and understanding the genetic effects of resource management practices, and assisting conservation and sustainable management of genetic resources. This Population Genomics book discusses the concepts, approaches, applications and promises of population genomics in addressing most of the above fundamental and applied crucial aspects in a variety of organisms from microorganisms to humans. The book provides insights into a range of emerging population genomics topics including population epigenomics, landscape genomics, seascape genomics, paleogenomics, ecological and evolutionary genomics, biogeography, demography, speciation, admixture, colonization and invasion, genomic selection, and plant and animal domestication. This book fills a vacuum in the field and is expected to become a primary reference in Population Genomics world-wide.

The book examines the relationship between family resilience and recovery from substance use disorders. It presents information on etiology of substance use disorders within the family system as well as new research on resilience in addiction recovery. The book facilitates the development of evidence-based resilience practices, programs, and policies for those working or dealing with families and addiction. Key topics addressed include: Protecting workers from opioid misuse and addiction. Neuroscience-informed psychoeducation and training for opioid use disorder. New models for training health care providers. Role of families in recovery capital. Family Resilience and Recovery from Opioids and Other Addictions is a must-have resource for researchers, professors, and graduate students as well as clinicians and related professionals in family studies, public health, and clinical psychology and all interrelated disciplines, including behavioral health, social work, and psychiatry.

This book examines the drivers of inbound medical tourism in Germany. In light of growing international trade of medical services, it provides a quantitative analysis of the determinants of international patients' choice of destination. It develops coherent definitions of medical tourism and medical travel, and presents multiple unique data sets to identify inbound medical travelers in Germany. Further, it introduces an empirical modeling framework for investigating and quantifying the drivers and effects of a patient's choice of destination at the national, hospital and individual level. A particular focus of the analysis lies on cultural proximity and personal networks as key channels to convey trust in a destination's service. In addition, real consideration sets of international patients are presented. The findings presented are embedded in a global context and will help inform future empirical investigations and modeling.

Do you get up in the morning and hit the floor eager to tackle your day, or do you get up and just hit the floor? Today's women live with a lot of physical and emotional stress. Imagine how well you can serve God and others when you learn how to live healthy, prevent disease, and have energy that soars. This book is filled with much needed information and practical advice that will help you...

- see your body as a temple

- take charge of your health

- better understand your hormones, other body systems, and how they interrelate

- learn about our toxic environment and what to do to combat this problem

- learn how you are robbed of vital cellular energy from lectromagnetic fields and how pulsating magnetic resonance therapy can help

- make wise decisions with your money when it comes to your health and purchasing supplements

All while inspiring you to use your life experiences for spiritual growth, service

This book is a follow up to Social Capital and Health (2008), edited by Kawachi, Subramanian & Kim. Global Perspectives on Social Capital and Health provides a timely update on emerging topics in a fast-growing field, and features contributions from an outstanding international team of scholars, selected from a diverse range of disciplinary backgrounds including: social epidemiology, medical geography, social psychology, social welfare and gerontology, pediatrics, political science, economics, and medical sociology. The book is organized in three parts: Part 1. Emerging directions in social capital research. This section highlights novel directions in social capital research. These include: a) novel settings for conducting research on social capital (workplaces, schools), b) new approaches for causal inference in social capital (instrumental variable analysis, twin fixed effects designs); c) cutting-edge directions for social capital research, including studies of the origins of community social capital, the use of social network analysis to investigate social capital, and novel methods for investigating the link between social capital and crime. Part 2. Social capital and health policy. The three chapters in this section highlight implications of social capital for interventions and health policy. Part 3. Social capital and health in global perspective The four chapters in this section look at research on social capital and health from a global perspective. The authors summarize the empirical studies on social capital and health conducted in each country/region, or each population group; discuss how the concept of social capital "translates" across different cultures; and identify challenges and future directions for research.

Since the first randomized controlled studies were conducted on medical circumcision to assess their effectiveness on reducing HIV transmission, health systems have made considerable progress in adopting this practice in their HIV/AIDS and sexual reproductive health policies. As such, medical circumcision is being adopted as an additional intervention measure to support previous practices for reducing HIV infections in various countries or settings. James Kityo's pioneering book examines contexts, processes, policy projections, and likely engagements by reviewing sexual reproductive health policies or practices, and literature on medical circumcision, and identifies existing opportunities and challenges. His book also explores the medical, gender, ethical, socio-economic, and human rights dimensions of medical circumcision as an HIV/AIDS prevention method. Following peer-reviewed studies, Kityo found compelling evidence documenting the effectiveness of medical circumcision in reducing HIV transmission, and discusses this evidence in the context of HIV/AIDS in a developing health system in Sub-Saharan Africa. The author concludes that there is a range of opportunities from research and current practice to enable policy makers to adopt medical circumcision and other interventions at their disposal in order to reduce infections from HIV and AIDS-related deaths. The author suggests feasible recommendations for implementing successful HIV/AIDS prevention programs in developing nations' health systems, including medical circumcision's gradual inclusion in health practices; stakeholder support; an elaborate review of this intervention by women, politicians, religious communities, and funding agencies. The author introduces a guided action plan, which can be used as a launch pad to enhance the learning process in the integration of medical circumcision in existing health practices.

The popularization of the Internet, due in larger part to the advent of multifunctional cell phones, poses new challenges for health professionals, patients, and caregivers as well as creates new possibilities for all of us. This comprehensive volume analyzes how this social phenomenon is transforming long-established healthcare practices and perceptions in a country with one of the highest numbers of Internet users: Brazil. After an opening text that analyzes the Internet and E-Health Care as a field of study, the book comprises six parts. The first part introduces the emergence and development of the internet in Brazil, its pioneering experience in internet governance, digital inclusion, and online citizen participation. The second part is dedicated to internet health audiences by analyzing the cases of patients, the young, and the elderly seeking and sharing health information online, especially in virtual communities. The third part is dedicated to the challenges that the expansion of the internet in healthcare poses to all of us, such as the evaluation of the quality of health information available online and the prevention of the risks involved with online sales, cyberbullying, and consumption of prescription medicines. The fourth presents some innovative e-learning experiences carried out with different groups in Brazil, while the fifth part analyses some practical applications involving the Internet and health, including studies on M-Health, the Internet of things, serious games and the use of new information and communication technologies in health promotion. The last chapter analyses the future of healthcare in the Internet Age. The authors establish a critical and creative debate with international scholarship on the subject. This book is written in a direct and comprehensible way for professionals, researchers, students of communication and health, as well as for stakeholders and others interested in better understanding the trends and the different challenges related to the social phenomenon of the internet in health.

The demand for return in investment (ROI) analyses in public health is on the rise as a ‘business case’ needs to be presented before a public health programme can be funded. This book explains the science behind ROI analyses and shows how policy makers can learn the art of understanding and using it in the context of public health. Using examples drawn from the NICE ROI Tools, business cases for various alternative policy options around smoking cessation, improving physical activity and reducing alcohol use are presented. In addition, several examples of real-world decision problems facing public health investors are discussed to address the usefulness of ROI evidence in public health policy making.

In Obama, Doctors, and Health Reform, Richard Reece, MD explains what patient-centered care, physician demoralization, the entrepreneurial U.S. culture, and our system's complexities portend for reform. Reform and its handmaiden, transformation, hinge on how America's individualistic, entrepreneurial, and innovative culture responds to demands for higher quality, lower costs, and greater access.

When 78 million baby boomers turn 65 in 2011, they will expect the best medical care and a personal physician to care for them, as will the rest of the population. Will the doctors be there? And what will the care be like? Whatever the answers, it will require more personal involvement and personal responsibility on your part.

You may be asked: What plan do you want, a government alternative to a private plan? An HMO, PPO, basic plan, or a high deductible plan linked to a tax-deductible health savings account (HSA)? You may choose to receive your care at a retail clinic at a drug store or in a discount store. You may carry with you a personal hard disk loaded with your medical history.

If present trends continue, you also may have a hard time finding a personal doctor to care for you. What will you do then?

This book critically analyses the influence of international policies and guidelines on the performance of interventions aimed at reducing health inequities in Latin America, with special emphasis on health promotion and health in all policies strategies. While the implementation of these interventions plays a key role in strengthening these countries' capacity to respond to current and future challenges, the urgency and pressures of cooperation and funding agencies to show results consistent with their own agendas not only hampers this goal, but also makes the territory invisible, hiding the real problems faced by most Latin American countries, diminishing the richness of local knowledge production, and hindering the development of relevant proposals that consider the territory's conditions and cultural identity. Departing from this general analysis, the authors search for answers to the following questions: Why, despite the importance of the theoretical advances r egarding actions to address social and health inequities, haven't Latin American countries been able to produce the expected results? Why do successful initiatives only take place within the framework of pilot projects? Why does the ideology of health promotion and health in all policies mainly permeate structures of the health sector, but not other sectors? Why are intersectoral actions conjunctural initiatives, which often fail to evolve into permanent practices? Based on an extensive literature review, case studies, personal experiences, and interviews with key informants in the region, Globalization and Health Inequities in Latin America presents a strategy that uses monitoring and evaluation practices for enhancing the capacity of Latin American and other low and middle-income countries to implement sustainable processes to foster inclusiveness, equity, social justice and human rights. <

This book, written decades into the HIV epidemic, reflects critically on the idea that the socially excluded populations often focused on in HIV research are in fact difficult to access and reach. The author broadly applies the concept 'hard to reach' to characterize populations that researchers find difficult to engage with. Social factors that produce marginalization and ultimately result in people choosing not to engage in research are not captured by the concept of 'hard to reach'. Limited attention has focused on how researchers can address the social factors that result in decisions to not engage in research. Disrupting the ways in which people are conceptualized as 'hard to reach' so as to refocus on transforming social systems and personal values, beliefs and approaches is understudied. This book uses case examples based on HIV research with Indigenous youth, internally displaced women, LGBTQ communities in the Global North and Global South, and persons at the intersection of these identities, to identify successful approaches to working with marginalized and often vulnerable communities and groups. The chapters signal the need for attention to five key social factors when developing successful approaches: context and storytelling; cultural humility; critical hope; imagination and possibility; and love, intimate inquiry, and the beloved community, if nations, individuals and communities are to address the epidemic in a sustainable and impactful way.

This book provides a unique and succinct account of the history of health and fitness, responding to the growing recognition of physicians, policy makers and the general public that exercise is the most potent form of medicine available to humankind. Individual chapters present information extending from the earliest reaches of human history to the present day, arranged in the form of 30 thematic essays covering topics from the supposed idyll of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and its posited health benefits to the evolution of health professionals and the possible contribution of the Olympic movement to health and fitness in our current society. Learning objectives are set for each topic, and although technical language is avoided as far as possible, a thorough glossary explains any specialized terms that are introduced in each chapter. The critical thinking of the reader is stimulated by a range of questions arising from the text context, and each chapter concludes with a brief discussion of some of the more important implications for public policies on health and fitness today and into the future. The material will be of particular interest to graduate and undergraduate students in public health, health promotion, health policy, kinesiology, physical education, but will be of interest also to many studying medicine, history and sociology.

This unique, research-based investigation of the U.S. breast cancer movement compares the "pink" and "green" efforts within the movement and documents their use of similar citizen-science alliances, despite the contention over the use of consumer-based activism and pink products. Breast cancer activism is one of the most flourishing research and health advocacy movements in U.S. history. Yet the incidence of breast cancer is continuing to increase. This critical and revealing text investigates breast cancer activism in its two forms-the "pink movement" that focuses on developing awareness of, coping with, and managing breast cancer; and the "green movement" that strives to determine the possible environmental causes of breast cancer-such as pesticides, chemicals, and water and air pollution-and thereby hopes to prevent breast cancer. What caused this new green movement to develop? Will it replace or merge with the pink movement? Does either approach offer more promise for a solution? And how do the two movements differ in their positions or methodology towards a similar goal? With information culled from interviews with more than 50 industry stakeholders, The Green Solution to Breast Cancer: A Promise for Prevention argues that key attributes such as strategy, mission, and branding have led to a greater convergence between the pink and green wings of the movement and presents information that enables readers to consider if either approach might be the shorter route to beating breast cancer. Examines research findings that suggest that the pink and green aspects of the breast cancer movement are no longer separate but in fact are converging towards a focus on environmental prevention Provides an in-depth examination of advocacy organizations and the ways in which an organization's structure and ideology shape its agenda and strategies Looks critically at controversial aspects of the consumerism of the pink movement, the small portion of sales actually given to cancer research, and other shortcomings of this attempt to shop our way out of a nonetheless still-increasing disease Presents valuable information for upper level undergraduate and graduate students in political science within American politics or health politics courses as well as those studying women's and gender studies, sociology, nursing, and non-profit enterprises

This book presents new insights into the consequences of the impending growth in and impact of the older segment of Latino aging adults across distinctive regions of the Americas. It uses a comparative research framework to further understanding of current issues in health and aging in the transnational context of the health and migratory experiences of the U.S.- Mexican population. It provides an important contribution to the interdisciplinary investigation of chronic diseases and functional impairments, social care and medical services, care-giving and intervention development, and neighborhood factors supporting optimal aging, using new conceptual and methodological approaches (inter-group comparisons). Specifically, the chapters employ different methodologies that investigate trends in aging health and services related to immigration processes, family and household structure, macroeconomic changes in the quality of community life, and focus on the new realities of aging in Latino families in local communities. The book focuses on measurement, data-quality issues, new conceptual modeling techniques, and longitudinal survey capabilities, and suggests needed areas of new research. As such it is of interest to researchers and policy makers in a wide range of disciplines from social and behavioral sciences to economics, gerontology, geriatrics, and public health.