As researchers unravelled the mysteries of these new viruses, drug companies navigated new antiviral therapies designed to treat and prevent influenza through clinical trials.The continual development of new antivirals and control measures underscores not only the significance of influenza, but highlights options for the control of influenza

As public accountability has increased and resources have become scarcer, public health, like clinical medicine, has been forced to re-examine the benefits and costs of its activities. Decision and economic analysis are basic tools in carrying out that mission. These methods have become standard practice in clinical medicine and health services research. This book, now in its second edition, was written in an effort to apply and adapt that experience to public health situations.

The book was originally written to introduce Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff to the concepts of decision and economic analysis, to provide guidance on methods to maximize comparability of studios, and to provide access to frequently used reference information. It has been adapted to meet the needs of scientists and managers in state and local health departments and managed care organizations as well as students in schools of public health and clinicians for an introductory text - a text that shows how these methods can be applied in population-based practice, to facilitate better comparability of studies, and to solidify understanding of the scientific basis for use of these tools in decision making. Decision makers will learn how these studies are conducted so they can be critical consumers, understanding the strengths and limitions, and apply findings to policy and practice.

The second edition updates and expands upon the standard methodology for condcuting prevention effectiveness analyses. Each chapter has been revised or re-written. The chapters on measuring effectiveness, decision analysis, and making information useful for decision makers as well as several appendices are entirely new.

Geology, one of the basic natural sciences, is proving to be of outstanding importance in solving problems relating to:

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• agriculture
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• exploitation of the Earth's mineral resources
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• environmental issues
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• soil preservation
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• water
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• energy and other resources
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• protection against natural disasters (landslides, floods, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes) as well as human health.
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This monograph consists of the following five segments:

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• Introduction
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• Geological and other factors and their influence on the human health
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• Subject, tasks and methods of geomedical discipline
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• Regional medical geology
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• Applied medical geology
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A devastating, empathetic look at the opioid epidemic in the United States, through the eyes of a paramedic on the front lines. [I] set my cardiac monitor down by the young man's head. He is lifeless, his face white with a blue tinge. I apply the defibrillator pads to his hairless chest . . . A week from today, after the young man's brain shows no signs of electrical activity, the medical staff will take the breathing tube out, and with his family gathered by his side, he will pass away at the age of twenty-three. When Peter Canning started work as a paramedic on the streets of Hartford, Connecticut, twenty-five years ago, he believed drug users were victims only of their own character flaws. Although he took care of them, he did not care for them. But as the overdoses escalated, Canning began asking his patients how they had gotten started on their perilous journeys. And while no two tales were the same, their heartrending similarities changed Canning's view and moved him to educate himself about the science of addiction. Armed with that understanding, he began his fight against the stigmatization of users. In Killing Season, we ride along with Canning through the streets of Hartford as he tells stories of opioid overdose from a street-level vantage point. A first responder to hundreds of overdoses throughout the rise of America's epidemic, Canning has seen the impact of prescription painkillers, heroin, and the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl firsthand. Bringing us into the room (or the car, or the portable toilet) with the victims of this epidemic, Canning explains how he came to favor harm reduction, which advocates for needle exchange, community naloxone, and safe-injection sites. Through the rapid-fire nature of one paramedic's view of addiction and overdose, readers will come to understand more than just the science and misguided policies behind the opioid epidemic. They'll also share in Canning's developing empathy. Stripping away the stigma of addiction through stories that are hard-hitting, poignant, sad, confessional, funny, and overall, human, Killing Season will change minds about the epidemic, help obliterate stigma, and save lives.

This book is a collection of mortality abstracts based on recent follow-up studies on the results of health disorders from the abstracts and articles appearing recently in the Journal of Insurance Medicine. The widely different types of investigators who may have repeated need of outcome data (death or morbid event) in a particular disease or risk factor will find this collection invaluable. Such a collection is valuable not only to users in the insurance industry, but to all physicians and health scientists who are interested in prognosis of chronic diseases, in clinical trials, in cost/benefit questions, in clinical decision-making, and similar fields of inquiry.

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have developed rapidly in recent years and now provide powerful tools for the capture, manipulation, integration, interrogation, modelling, analysis and visualisation of data - tools that are already used for policy support in a wide range of areas at almost all geographic and administrative levels. This holds especially for emergency preparedness and health risk reduction, which are all essentially spatial problems. To date, however, many initiatives have remained disconnected and uncoordinated, leading to less powerful, less compatible and less widely implemented systems than might otherwise have been the case.
The important matters discussed here include the probabilistic nature of most environmental hazards and the semi-random factors that influence interactions between these and human exposures; the effects of temporal and spatial scales on hazard assessment and imputed risk; the effects of measurement error in risk estimation and the stratification of risks and their impacts according to socioeconomic characteristics; and the quantification of socioeconomic differences in vulnerability and susceptibility to environmental hazards.
GIS are powerful analytical tools in their own right, but what is needed is much more effective communication between the many disciplines, professions and stakeholders concerned - something which this book helps to achieve.

This is a critical assessment of breakthrough biosensor technologies that will allow for the rapid identification of biological threat agents in the environment and human population. The book provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of biological weapons threat, and reviews biosensor technologies including detection platforms, networked alarm-type biodetector systems, implementation strategies, electro-optical and electrochemical biosensors.

Mass immunization is the blitzkrieg of vaccination practice. It serves to rapidly protect populations, both because of the high coverage achieved and because of the herd immunity thereby induced. However, as in war, mass immunization campaigns must be conducted intelligently, with careful strategy and strong attention to logistics of supply and deployment. If conducted badly, mass immunization may fail or even be counter-productive. In this volume, some of the most successful practitioners of mass im- nization tell us about its art and science. David Heymann and Bruce Aylward of WHO begin the book with a theoretical and practical overview of mass immunization. Michael Lane, who participated in the successful effort to eradicate smallpox relates how this was done using mass vaccination and other strategies. Application of mass immunization by the US military is c- ered by John Grabenstein and Remington Nevin, who have a large experience in these matters. Karen Noakes and David Salisbury recount the striking s- cesses of mass immunization in the United Kingdom. The global control of the clostridia that produce diphtheria toxin is described by Charles Vitek. Hepa- tis A is decreasing dramatically under the impact of large-scale vaccination, as Francis Andre illustrates. The French experience with Hepatitis B vac- nation has been mixed, and Francois Denis and Daniel Levy-Bruhl explain the circumstances. In?uenza vaccination is an annual example of large-scale campaigns, the complexity of which is recounted by Benjamin Schwartz and Pascale Wortley.

Obesity has reached epidemic proportions globally and presents a major challenge to policy makers and clinicians alike. Recent research has suggested that obesity has its origins in early life and that early diet can programme a developing fetus and young infant s future susceptibility to obesity. This volume contains recent findings presented at the International Conference on Early Nutrition Programming and Health Outcomes in Later Life: Obesity and Beyond - a satellite meeting of the 15th European Congress on Obesity, held in Budapest in April 2007. Basic scientific research, data from epidemiological studies and clinical trial results were all presented during the programme.

This volume includes articles discussing the evidence for an effect of early nutrition programming on later obesity and cardiovascular risk; the growing evidence for an intergenerational cycle of obesity; the role of maternal leptin in programming appetite; possible cellular mechanisms for altered energy balance, including mitochondrial programming and the effects of regulators of metabolism; and how epigenetic changes might be the fundamental underlying mechanism explaining programming effects. Consumer understanding of the concept of early nutrition programming and the extent to which early nutrition programming is taken into account in infant feeding policies are also discussed.

There has been a significant increase in the prevalence of certain chronic disorders among children and adolescents. For example, health experts warn of an epidemic of diabetes mellitus due to an increase in the sedentary life style and poor nutrition of children. There are many questions still to be addressed in the study of chronic disorders among children and adolescents.What are the risk factors associated with chronic diseases in these populations?What are the major complications that contribute to disability and increased health care utilization and costs? What impact do chronic diseases have on the psychosocial development? What are the most effective diagnostic, treatment, and rehabilitation strategies? How can patient education and self-management activities be improved to help children and adolescents improve compliance with treatment regimens? How can parents and other family members become more involved in assessment and management? In what ways can peers, schools, religious institutions, and other organizations help children and adolescent scope with their chronic disease? This book addresses these questions by focusing on how eight chronic disorders affect health care utilization, costs, coping, and health outcomes in children and adolescents.Research studies are used to illustrate wide range of topics from the epidemiology of chronic diseases in children and adolescents, health care utilization and costs, to treatment outcomes, disability, and family processes.Case studies from a clinical psychologist's private practice are used to clarify major psychosocial issues underlying chronic diseases in these populations. Chapter One analyzes the epidemiology of eight chronic conditions in children and adolescents. Data on the prevalence of diseases and associated risk factors are stressed in this chapter. Health care planners can use these analyses to improve primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention through more effective uses of health care resources. Chapter Two examines the latest information on health care utilization and costs for children and adolescents that can point to a more efficient means of reducing the rising health care costs associated with the treatment of chronic diseases.

In the remaining chapters, the eight chronic diseases are evaluated in terms of five major issues. First, the latest trends in complications associated with each chronic condition are explored.Second, the impact of each disease on disability and psychosocial development of children and adolescents are analyzed. Third, recent research findings on diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation strategies are discussed. Fourth, new trends in patient education and self-management are presented. Fifth, each chapter will assess the role of family, peers, schools, and other organizations in helping children and adolescents cope with their chronic disorders. Dr. Mark L. Goldstein, a clinical psychologist, reviews the literature and uses composite case studies from his practice to illustrate the impact of these trends on how children and adolescents manage chronic disease.The information in this book will be relevant to a wide range of professionals and students in the fields of pediatrics, medicine, nursing, public health, mental health, social work, education, health administration, health policy, and social sciences."

This volume describes classic and contemporary theory and research in social psychology that sheds light on how people think about health and illness, as well as their willingness to engage in health-relevant behaviors. The Editors have selected papers that serve to illustrate the reciprocal relation between advances in theory and advances in practice.

The first two sections of the volume examine people's mental representations of health and health practices, and how these personal construals and implicit theories are linked to behavior. People can react to new health information in different ways - with acceptance, defensiveness, or downright ignorance. Research that can help us to understand these varied reactions is examined in Section 3. The following sections consider how classic social psychological theories and perspectives can be used to understand behavior relevant to health and illness. These include social influence, social comparison, pluralistic ignorance, social support, cognitive dissonance, message framing, and attribution theory. Finally, several articles consider links between personality characteristics and health, such as those between hostility and heart disease, and confiding traumatic experiences and immune function. The volume also contains a introductory chapter by the editors which provides a discussion of why social and personality psychologists should be interested in health and illness.

Together with overviews for each section, discussion questions, and suggestions for further reading, the volume is an ideal text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses on health psychology. The volume is also appropriate for courses in related disciplines such as public health, nursing, health education, health communication, and other allied health sciences.

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This is the first book to deal exclusively with the influence and meaning of what media historian Paul Heyer calls our century's first collective nightmare. Using contemporary as well as archival sources, he explores a series of intriguing questions: Why has the TITANIC disaster affected the way we think about ourselves and our technology? How has the media made it into a morality play of mythic dimensions? What impact has that story had on the development of 20th-century communications? This timely and compelling book pays homage to the TITANIC's fateful voyage by attempting to explain not why she struck an iceberg on a cold April night in 1912, but what is surely her greatest enigma: the hold the event still has over us.

Heyer assesses the impact of the TITANIC disaster on the 20th century by exploring the relationship between the event and a variety of media from 1912 to the present. The role of the media in the disaster begins with the TITANIC's distress call. Only a partial success, it resulted in a concerted plea for more wireless regulation. Subsequent newspaper coverage called the sinking the story of the century. The mad scramble for information led to the use of every possible journalistic technique, ethical or otherwise. In his analysis, Heyer puts particular emphasis on the New York Times, which became the paper of record and achieved international prominence for its accurate and sometimes controversial reporting. As soon as press coverage subsided, the TITANIC tragedy resurfaced in literature and film. It has gone on to become one of the most enduring myths in 20th century popular culture. Heyer examines this phenomenon, and shows us how and why, following the discovery of the wreck (1985) and the Challenger disaster (1986), our obsession with the TITANIC has been greater than at any other time since 1912. This is a unique and provocative book that will appeal to readers interested in popular history, media studies, and American studies.

Public health has, for many years, been concerned with efforts to increase the efficiency of health care delivery, to measure changes in health care resource utilization and associated costs, and to link these changes to different types of interventions. These efforts, as well as collaboration between biopharmaceutical organizations, producers of medical devices, and managed care and public health organizations, have been enhanced by the opportunities created within the fast growing field of outcomes research. This volume presents studies contributing to the enhancement of the outcomes research paradigm by incorporating economic and social interactions within the health care delivery, clinical decision-making and outcomes systems. A multidisciplinary team of scientists in the fields of outcomes research, pharmacoeconomics, public health, health services research, and health economics address such complex problems as: benefits and cost of advancements in genetic technologies; methodologies for constructing health care utilization and cost estimates; and the effect of insurance type on resource utilization and health outcomes. Other studies consider both the types of drugs purchased and the prices paid, pharmaceutical spending and health outcomes, incremental advantages of newer treatments, willingness to pay measurements, disease-specific impacts on human capital and quality of life, and modelling clinical trial results. One of the most important findings in this book is the description of the role of low energy in the symptomatology of depression and its strong relationship with absenteeism, work productivity and social functioning. Another paper documents the disease-specific mortality, case-fatality and annual health care utilization in diabetics and establishes the association of respiratory conditions with elevated mortality among diabetics. The work contains other papers which provide significant results in cardiovascular, infectious, central nervous system disease areas as well as in quality of life and health outcomes measurements.

With a particular emphasis on tumor dormancy in breast, lung, prostate, and liver cancers, as well as in melanoma, this first volume of a new Springer series focuses on the interrelationship between biological processes of aging and tumors -- both dormant and quiescent. With detail supplied by numerous international researchers at the forefront of cancer research, the book examines a host of differing aspects of the topic. Featured contributions analyze the role of the quiescent state in regulating hematopoietic and muscle stem cells. They also explore the mediation, by the kinase, in the reversible quiescent state of a subset of ovarian, pancreatic, and colon cancers. The book includes key research on the molecular mechanisms underlying stress-induced cellular senescence, in addition to those governing the accumulation of reactive oxygen species, and the induction of premature senescence. It also provides information on suppressing cellular senescence in the most common, and most aggressive malignant primary brain tumor in humans, glioblastoma multiforme. With comprehensive and cutting-edge information on therapeutic interventions and on the correct diagnosis of relevant neoplasms, and with numerous color illustrations, this is the most up-to-date assessment of current medical knowledge in this crucial area of medical research.

This wide-ranging volume reviews the experience and treatment of HIV/AIDS in rural America at the clinical, care system, community, and individual levels. Rural HIV-related phenomena are explored within healthcare contexts (physician shortages, treatment disparities) and the social environment (stigma, the opioid epidemic), and contrasted with urban frames of reference. Contributors present latest findings on HIV medications, best practices, and innovative opportunities for improving care and care settings, plus invaluable first-person perspective on the intersectionality of patient subpopulations. These chapters offer both seasoned and training practitioners a thorough grounding in the unique challenges of providing appropriate and effective services in the region. Featured topics include: Case study: Georgia's rural vs. non-rural populations HIV medications: how they work and why they fail Pediatric/adolescent HIV: legal and ethical issues Our experience: HIV-positive African-American women in the Deep South Learning to age successfully with HIV Bringing important detail to an often-marginalized population, HIV/AIDS in Rural Communities will interest and inspire healthcare practitioners including physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, case managers, psychologists, social workers, counselors, and family therapists, as well as educators, students, persons living with HIV, advocates, community leaders, and policymakers.

Written in clear, nontechnical language, this investigation of drug resistance provides readers with an overview of the scientific issues, the current scope of the problem nationally and globally, and the measures that can be taken to combat this public health crisis. Drug resistance—the reduction in the effectiveness of a particular medicine (particularly antimicrobials) in treating a disease or condition—is considered one of the most pressing issues in medicine today. This problem is likely to have profound impacts on society in the decades to come. This understandable, single-volume book explores the history of drug resistance, explains how drug resistance occurs, cites the most problematic examples, identifies the potential consequences, and describes how drug resistance can be prevented. It also pays attention to current issues and controversies surrounding this topic, such as the role of the industrialized food system in breeding antibiotic-resistant strains of E. coli. The coverage includes up-to-date information about specific diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), for which drug resistance is a particular issue. Readers will understand how human behavior, such as patient non-adherence to treatment and physician over-prescription of antibiotics, have served to foster drug resistance. A selection of primary documents sourced from organizations such as the World Health Organization, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will serve those interested in pursuing more detailed research on particular topics.

This text provides a foundation for the initiation of advocacy efforts and for the evaluation of their success and includes topics such as: specific strategies, grassroots advocacy efforts, formation and development of coalitions, advocacy efforts in legislatures, administrative agencies, court, and the media. It is of interest to public and urban health workers, social workers, community organizers, and legislators.

As a result of arms control efforts over the past 50 years, nuclear material is subject to strict national controls and tough international treaties. But there are still almost no controls, other than a voluntary International Atomic Energy Agency code of conduct, on the sorts of radiological sources used to make radiological dirty bombs. Radiological sources are used all over the world for a wide range of peaceful purposes, including smoke detectors, medical devices, meteorology, mining and thermoelectric generators. There are at least eight million identified radiological sources worldwide. Their small size, portability and high value make them vulnerable to misuse and theft: the IAEA reported 272 cases of illicit trafficking in sealed radioactive sources between 1993 and 2002.

The IAEA estimates that 110 countries worldwide still fail to impose adequate controls. The time is ripe for an international convention and treaty on the safety and security of radiological sources.

This book covers expert discussions designed to enhance cooperation and assistance between NATO and Partner countries in support of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) efforts to secure radioactive sources against the threat of terrorism and also to support the security agenda at the International Radiation Protection Association Congress in Buenos Aires in 2008.

This volume creates a multi-disciplinary dialogue about clinician-patient communication. It offers a description of the relevance of culture as a contextual effect that impacts the clinician-patient relationship. Some topics addressed include: oncology care, quality of life issues, supportive survivorship, etc. It is for physicians, nurses, hospice and palliative care professionals and public health professionals.

The last time Clancy Martin tried to kill himself was in his basement with a dog leash. He didn’t write a note. How Not to Kill Yourself is an affirmation of life by someone who has tried to end it multiple times. It’s about standing in your bathroom every morning, gearing yourself up to die. It’s about choosing to go on living anyway. In an unflinching account of his darkest moments, Clancy Martin makes the case against suicide, drawing on the work of philosophers from Seneca to Jean Améry. Through critical inquiry and practical steps, we might yet answer our existential despair more freely – and with a little more creativity.

Applying multimodal textual analysis to the languages and images of online communication forms, Kay Richardson shows, from an applied linguistic perspective, how the Internet is being used for global, interactive communication about public health risks. Detailed case studies of the possible risks posed by SARS, by mobile phones and by the vaccination of babies against childhood diseases are situated within the context of research on computer-mediated communication, as well as within the broader social context of globalization and discourses of risk and trust.