This book is the first one to examine the cause and effect of elderly people's healthy life expectancy, providing models that are easy to understand. The novel point is the success achieved in constructing a single structural model of cause and effect of healthy life expectancy. In the final models of the authors' studies, it was possible to clearly point out that it is not the case that lifestyle habits including an ideal diet directly provide for healthy life expectancy.This book is made up of published studies based on scientific evidence, using a vast amount of data based on about 8,000 in-home elderly people tracked longitudinally from 3 to 6 years, three times in all including baseline research, in a specific region of Japan. Therefore, health policy makers will be able to use this book as scientific evidence for creating area programs to promote good health that are focused on healthy longevity as the central issue. Academic researchers whose special fields are mainly public health will be able to learn both theory and practice to structurally analyze cause and effect of health factors.

At the dawn of the Progressive Era, when America was experiencing an industrial boom, many working families often ate contaminated food, lived in decaying urban tenements, and had little access to medical care. In a city that demanded change, Los Angeles women, rather than city officials, championed the call to action.

Cultivating Health, an interdisciplinary chronicle, details women's impact on remaking health policy, despite the absence of government support. Combining primary source and municipal archival research with comfortable prose, Jennifer Lisa Koslow explores community nursing, housing reform, milk sanitation, childbirth, and the campaign against venereal disease in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Los Angeles. She demonstrates how women implemented health care reform and civic programs while laying the groundwork for a successful transition of responsibility back to government.

Koslow highlights women's home health care and urban policy-changing accomplishments and pays tribute to what would become the model for similar service-based systems in other American centers.

The post war history of public health and the role of smoking within that history epitomises the tensions which surround taking health to the public. Public health history has largely concentrated on the nineteenth century sanitary period or on the years before the Second World War, often focussing on the environmental advances, or on the professional and occupational history of public health as an activity. This book has a different focus: it deals with the change in the outlook of public health post war. From a focus on services, vaccination, and dealing with health issues at the local level, public health had developed new discourse. Centring on chronic disease, it became concerned with the concept of "risk" and targeted individual behaviour. The mass media and centralised campaigning directed at the whole population replaced local campaigns, and politicians changed their mind about speaking directly to the public on health matters. Their early worries about the 'nanny state' gave place to a desire to inculcate new norms of behaviour, and it was debated how change was to be achieved.
Identifying debates between those believing in "systematic gradualism" and those who advocated a more coercive approach, Virginia Berridge uses smoking as a model. Such debates brought into play tensions over the relationships between public health and industrial interests. Health campaigning by new style pressure groups like ASH, which were part state funded, was an important motive force behind the change.
In the 1980s and 1990s, public health changed again. Passive smoking and HIV/AIDS brought environmental concerns back into public health, which had disappeared after the 1950s. The "rise ofaddiction" for smoking demonstrated the power of pharmaceutical interests to define a new "pharmaceutical public health" in which treatment and "magic bullets" were also tactics for prevention. In the early 21st century, public health was play to complex tensions and conflicting impetuses. This book shows that those tensions were nothing new and outlines their development over the last half century.

Originally published between 1973 and 1990, this collection reissues twelve books that focus on the lives of children with mental and physical disabilities. Together, the books reflect research being done in the period and look at the challenges individuals, families, and professionals faced at that time. Topics covered include caring for children with disabilities, inclusion, and coping with particular disabilities.

"Medical dialogues are rarely solely about medical matters but serve as a proxy for feelings about the self and the way that an individual relates to others. Indeed, the inclusion of transcripts of interviews and discussions is of particular value...a brave book that challenges popular assumptions about Gulf War syndrome; her analysis of the long-term effects of military service will serve as an important record not only for those with an interest in the armed forces, but also for researchers in the field of illness perception." . The British Journal of Psychiatry

"This is an important anthropological study, which I believe is set to become a classic. The theoretical perspectives are clearly presented and applied to compelling ethnographic material. The publication of this manuscript will make it accessible to both undergraduate and graduate students of anthropology, as well as students of political science, sociology and military studies." . Vieda Skultans

From September 1990 to June 1991, the UK deployed 53,462 military personnel in the Gulf War. After the end of the conflict anecdotal reports of various disorders affecting troops who fought in the Gulf began to surface. This mysterious illness was given the name "Gulf War Syndrome" (GWS). This book is an investigation into this recently emergent illness, particularly relevant given ongoing UK deployments to Iraq, describing how the illness became a potent symbol for a plethora of issues, anxieties, and concerns. At present, the debate about GWS is polarized along two lines: there are those who think it is a unique, organic condition caused by Gulf War toxins and those who argue that it is probably a psychological condition that can be seen as part of a larger group of illnesses. Using the methods and perspective of anthropology, with its focus on nuances and subtleties, the author provides a new approach to understanding GWS, one that makes sense of the cultural circumstances, specific and general, which gave rise to the illness.

Susie Kilshaw is a social anthropologist at University College London where she pursues her research interests in new illnesses, health scares and anxieties, military health, and trans-cultural psychiatry. She previously worked for the NHS as a clinically applied medical anthropologist on issues surrounding ethnic minorities and mental health. Since 2004 she has been Assistant Editor of Anthropology and Medicine."

The aim of this book is to present current views about physical activity and the benefits of physical activity in preventing and ameliorating various health conditions that are of worldwide concern. This book was developed as a compilation of the accomplishments of the five-year Global COE (Center of Excellence) "Sport Sciences for the Promotion of Active Life" Program at the Faculty of Sport Sciences of Waseda University, Saitama, Japan. The first part establishes the research methodology and discusses the current status of physical activity. Topics covered include the prevalence of physical inactivity and highly sedentary behavior in different populations as well as strategies that can be adopted to promote physical activity. The second part focuses on the physiological effects of physical activity. Topics covered include physiological responses to exercise by the autonomic nervous system, the endocrine system, vascular functioning, postprandial blood glucose control, and inflammatory processes. The relationship between exercise and appetite is discussed, as is the influence of exercise on food intake and weight regulation. Additionally, the influence of exercise on protein regulation and posttranslational modifications is introduced. The final part discusses the role of physical activity in preventing lifestyle-related health issues and improving the quality of life, especially for the elderly. The contents should be of interest to anyone who is concerned with the human physiologic response to exercise and the promotion of healthy lifestyles, including sports and exercise science researchers as well as those involved with medicine, public health, physiology, nutrition, and elder care.

This is the first comprehensive text on the design and analysis of group-randomized trials. It It collects information previously scattered among journals and texts in a variety of disciplines, and, in addition, presents much new material not available elsewhere. The book has been written to help those involved in these trials improve their ability to plan, fund, conduct, analyse, and interpret them, and to give students a detailed understanding of the field. Group-randomized trials are comparative studies in which the units of assignment are identifiable groups and the units of observation are members of those groups. The positive intraclass correlation expected among the members of each group poses unique and challenging issues for the design and analysis of these trials and separates them from the traditional clinical trial. After reviewing the underlying issues, Murray presents the research designs that are most widely used in group-randomized trials, together with their strengths, weaknesses, and appropriate applications. He describes the many approaches to analysis that are now available, presents mixed-model regression analyses appropriate to each design, and illustrates them using data from the Minnesota Heart Health Program. He also covers methods for estimating sample size, detectable difference, and power. This volume is not limited only to a conceptual treatment of the issues and solutions. It offers a review of the practical applications in a series of case studies, examples, and problems.

Our health system resembles a repair service which treats illness and suffering. But in many cases it would seem much simpler to avoid health problems. Why do we wait until the illnesses have developed? Young and expectant families are particularly interested in maintaining the health of their children and their whole family. Since prevention must begin long before the emergence of illness, there can be no better time to start than the beginning of life. This book presents a range of contributions that not only encourage theoretical reflection about the topics discussed but also provide practical suggestions.

An ideal book for those coming to the anthropology of drugs for the first time, filling a surprisingly big gap in the literature Includes many case studies, such as drug tourism, the opioid crisis and 'county lines' in the UK as well as global examples from the Philippines, Mexico, North America and Europe Helps connect the anthropology of drugs to issues highly relevant to professional working in drug treatment, health, social work and mental health

Modern societies and organizations are characterized by multiple kinds of observations, systems, or rationalities, rather than singular identities and clear hierarchies. This holds true for healthcare where we find a range of different perspectives from medicine to education, from science to law, from religion to politics brought together in different types of arrangements. This innovative volume explores how this polycontexturality plays out in the healthcare arena.

Drawing on systems theory, and Luhmann s theory of social systems as communicative systems in particular, the contributors investigate how things drugs, for example and bodies are observed and constructed in different ways under polycontextural conditions. They explore how the different types of communication and observation are brought into workable arrangements without becoming identical or reconciled and discuss how health care organizations observe their own polycontexturality.

Providing an analysis of healthcare structures that is up to speed with the complexity of healthcare today, this book shows how society and its organizations simultaneously manage contexts that do not fit together. It is an important work for those with an interest in health and illness, social theory, Niklas Luhmann, organizations and systems theory from a range of backgrounds including sociology, health studies, political science and management."

Currently a great deal of public discourse around health is on the assumed relationship between childhood inactivity, young people's diets, and a putative steep rise in obesity. Children and young people are increasingly being identified as a population at 'risk' in relation to these health concerns. Such concerns are driving what might be described as new 'health imperatives' which prescribe the choices young people should make around lifestyle: physical activity, body regulation, dietary habits, and sedentary behaviour. These health imperatives are a powerful force driving major policy initiatives on health and education in a number of countries in the Western world. Schools in particular have been targeted for the implementation of a plethora of initiatives designed to help children and young people lose weight, become more active and change their eating patterns inside and outside school. Addressing these issues requires an innovative theoretical approach. Neither the fields of 'eating disorders' nor 'obesity research' has addressed these issues from a sociological and pedagogical perspective. The contributors to this edited collection draw on a range of social theories, including Michel Foucault and Basil Bernstein to interpret the data collected across three countries (Australia and New Zealand, United Kingdom) and from a range of primary and secondary schools. Each chapter addresses various aspects of the relationship between health imperatives as constituted in government policies, school programs and practices, their recontextualised in school practices and the impact of this on the subjectivities of children and teachers. This book was originally published as a special issue of Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education.

There is a near-universal folk saying that everyone wishes to live a good long life, but no one wishes for old age. More contemporarily, the rock and roll band, Little Feat, sang, "You know that you're over the hill when your mind's making promises your body can't fill. " This book is about the good long life. It is a book about primary prevention strategies in the aging process; it is not about preventing that process. It is not about being old. Instead, it is about the things that individuals - and the helping professionals who provide them with counsel and assistance - can do to prevent the preventable problems of advancing age, and to better manage those changes in functioning that cannot be prevented. In short, it is about extending all our capacities to the fullest so that we can better keep all those promises that we make to ourselves and others. Aging is a life-long process. We focus here on the changes that are taking place in our selves and in our society as we age. In particular, we focus on what we can do to affect these changes by the choices we make and how we live. This book offers primary prevention strategies for mature and older adults, with the recognition that mature adulthood starts as soon as we are old enough to truly appreciate our active role in our own aging processes.

Viewing Art with Babies demonstrates how to facilitate quality art viewing experiences with babies from as young as two months old. Such experiences can help to nurture early literacy and receptive language skills, sensory stimulation, and early brain development. Based on the author's research with babies in New Zealand, Australia, Romania, England, and the U.S., the book provides the reader with information about early brain, vision, sensory and language development, as well as the aesthetic preferences of babies. Danko-McGhee provides details about the type of art that babies like, how to display art in the learning environment, and how to interact with a baby when viewing art. Case studies of international museums, national museums and community agencies that have had success with engaging babies in art viewing experiences will be included in the book as a way to demonstrate how theory and research can be successfully put into practice. Viewing Art with Babies details practical ways that museum practitioners, early childhood and community educators and parents can provide art-viewing experiences in the museum, early childhood classroom or even their own home. It will be of interest to practitioners and parents around the world, as well as those engaged in the study of museum education.

Drawing on information published in the World Population Policies Database, this data booklet provides up-to-date information on government policies on reproductive health issues, including access to family planning, policies to promote sexual and reproductive health of adolescents, laws on abortion and programmes to reduce maternal mortality, for all 193 Member States, 2 Observer States and 2 non-member States of the United Nations. The booklet also provides latest estimates of contraceptive use and unmet need, maternal mortality ratio, antenatal care and delivery care, adolescent fertility and other selected indicators. The Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs was established to play an active role in the intergovernmental dialogue on population and development, producing constantly updated demographic estimates and projections for all countries, including data essential for the monitoring of development around the world.

Translational Biotechnology: A Journey from Laboratory to Clinics presents an integrative and multidisciplinary approach to biotechnology to help readers bridge the gaps between fundamental and functional research. The book provides state-of-the-art and integrative views of translational biotechnology by covering topics from basic concepts to novel methodologies. Topics discussed include biotechnology-based therapeutics, pathway and target discovery, biological therapeutic modalities, translational bioinformatics, and system and synthetic biology. Additional sections cover drug discovery, precision medicine and the socioeconomic impact of translational biotechnology. This book is valuable for bioinformaticians, biotechnologists, and members of the biomedical field who are interested in learning more about this promising field.

On Vulnerability maps out an array of perspectives for critically examining the nature of vulnerability, its unequal patterning across different social groups, alongside the everyday social processes that render us vulnerable - interactions, identity and group dynamics. Each chapter equips the reader with a particular sensitising framework for navigating and questioning what it means to be vulnerable or how people cope amid vulnerability. From deviance, stigma and the spoiling or fracturing of identity, to perspectives such as intersectionality, risk, emotions and the vulnerable body, the book traces the theoretical roots of these different analytical lenses, before applying these through illuminating examples and case studies. Drawing on scholarship across more interpretative, analytic and critical traditions, the chapters combine into a multi-dimensional toolkit which will enable the study of the cultural meanings of vulnerability, the political-economic factors that shape its patterning, with a critical sensibility for 'unlearning' many assumptions, therefore challenging our sense of who is, or who can be, vulnerable. This book is designed to equip undergraduate and post-graduate students and researchers across the social, health and human sciences, aiding them as they study and question the experiences and structures of vulnerability in our social world.

This volume is designed to motivate and engage scientists, policymakers, and practitioners to greater scientific discourse, reduce the stigma on and validate the importance of women's sexual and reproductive health. It brings together historians, anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, epidemiologists, public health researchers, genetic counselors, attorneys, social workers, nurses and physicians, and presents comprehensive coverage that will benefit women's health advocates, students, and practitioners.