Medical technology broadly defined to include all aspects of the process of treating disease (e.g., pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and surgical procedures) is profoundly important for individual health and, consequently, also for general welfare. Advances in medical technology convey the prospect of both improved population health and increased general welfare. However, because of the extensive regulation of the markets for healthcare goods and services, the development and application of medical technologies differs fundamentally from non-medical technological advances. In this volume of the "Advances in Health Economics and Health Services Research" series we present several papers that provide theoretical and empirical evidence about the market for medical technology.

"This book shows why contests over intellectual property rights and access to affordable medicines emerged in the 1990s and how they have been resolved so far. It argues that the current arrangement mainly ensures wealth for some rather than health for all, and points to broader concerns related to governing intellectual property solely as capital"--Provided by publisher.

The book presents interpretations of culture, health, politics, and religion in Sweden today, Sweden transforms from the well-functioning but existentially bland economic wonder to a more fragmented and gloomy society. Contributors include scholars from film studies, literary studies, political science, religious studies and theology

This book provides an overview of the core professional issues in the field of child and youth care practice. The author explores themes ranging from relationships and the exploration of Self to career building and field-specific approaches to management. The book is written from a pragmatic perspective, and serves both to advance current thinking in the field about professional issues as well as to provide the student of child and youth care practice and practitioners with practical and accessible approaches to developing a strong and sustainable professional identity. All of the themes in this book are explored within a context of ethical decision-making and practice approaches informed by a commitment to children's rights and empowerment. Throughout the discussions, concepts and themes are considered in relation to four specific lenses: the power lens, the diversity lens, the language lens and the transitioning from theory to practice lens. These lenses serve to ensure that the reader adopts a critical understanding of the professional issues in the field and is able to develop his or her own professional identity while mitigating the power and identity issues necessarily associated with being a practitioner in a helping profession. This book was published as a special issue of Child and Youth Services.

As Carole Browner explains in her foreword: ""These chapters compellingly reveal that although we anthropologists tend to speak of biomedicine in hegemonic terms, in fact its penetration is quite variable and often ambivalently met. . . . Risk, Reproduction, and Narratives of Experience sheds new light on a troubling core aspect of medicalisation processes, which simultaneously render pregnant women more docile subjects even as they are impelled to actively engage with biomedicalised prenatal care regimes. . . . We also see that a consummate means by which states seek to consolidate power in the reproductive realm is through expansion of the biomedical concept of risk. This critical observation emerges repeatedly in this collection.""

Exploring the increasing involvement of the private sector in social policy, this collection examines the complex relationship between the public and private sectors from an international perspective, focusing on health and pension policies.

The increasing importance of sickness and disability data across health-related disciplines is the focus of this concise but comprehensive resource. It reviews the basics of morbidity at the population level by defining core concepts, analyzing why morbidity has overtaken mortality as central to demographic study, and surveying ways these data are generated, accessed, and measured. Subsequent chapters demonstrate how this knowledge can be used to better understand-and potentially solve-critical public health issues, benefitting not only populations served, but also areas such as health services planning, resource allocation, and health policy-setting. To make this material useful to the most readers, this reference: Explains why and how morbidity data are categorized by health professionals and other data users. Examines various methods of identifying and measuring morbidity data. Identifies demographic and non-demographic factors associated with morbidity. Describes and evaluates sources of U.S. morbidity data. Reviews the current state of morbidity in the U.S., and what it means for healthcare and society in general. Suggests future uses of morbidity data in reducing health disparities and improving population health. In Sickness and In Health is uniquely relevant to demographers and demography students, public health professionals, and epidemiologists. Its presentation of concepts and applications makes the book a valuable classroom text and a useful guide for those addressing challenges facing U.S. healthcare.

In 2004, Charles Cullen was arrested and charged in the deaths of more than 30 patients in his care. Crossing several jurisdictions in seven counties in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, he was stopped after a fifteen-year spree at ten institutions. While many people do not think of healthcare workers as serial killers, their profession is disproportionately represented among the serial killer population, and they tend to be more prolific than other serial killers, having more opportunities, better cover, and easy alibis. Healthcare professionals who kill have learned how to exploit the atmosphere of trust in the healthcare community and to hasten deaths that may go unnoticed in an already vulnerable arena. This book delves into the world of the healthcare serial killer, looking at the special characteristics of the different groups of murderers, the motives, the methods, and the outcomes. Crime specialists have long suspected that many healthcare serial killers have gone undetected. Because it is easier to cover up their crimes, it is harder to uncover that a crime has even been committed. Here, Ramsland identifies some of the warning signs that a serial killer may be on the loose in a healthcare setting. Further, she offers suggestions for reform in the healthcare and criminal justice communities that would help identify potential killers before they have a chance to strike, or strike again. Using numerous real-life cases in every chapter, she provides a fuller picture of this most deadly type of serial killer and helps readers understand how they work, and how they can be stopped.

This report analyses the findings of an extensive research project conducted by Oxfam in Ethiopia. In the context of Ethiopia's rising external debt and the new decentralised system of regional governance, members of four communities, both rural and urban, were interviewed about their problems in gaining access to basic health care, reproductive-health services and primary education; front-line service providers were also interviewed. Representatives of central and regional government and international donors were consulted and policy documents reviewed. The report ends with recommendations addressed to the government of Ethiopia, NGOs and major donors and creditors, arguing human-development targets by 2015.

Technology plays a critical role in the management of health care, the system, its delivery and its organizations. This book examines the role of technology in the delivery of health care by physicians and other health care workers, and their respective roles in the management of health care technology. The complexity of the health care environment and the difficulties in managing technology in general (and in health care in particular) makes this book a landmark exploration for the purpose of creating in-roads into the largely uncharted territory of health care technology. The chapters in this book will introduce the horizons that are open for scholarly pursuit in this area. Managing Technology in Healthcare has two main objectives. First, to provide the reader with an overview of the main issues of concern and the topics of study in managing technology in health care. Second, to offer the reader specific knowledge embedded in the eleven chapters of the book, covering a broad range of topics of interest to health care and to R&D/technology scholars and practitioners.

This text, by a well regarded writing team, examines the relationship between the knowledge base of mental health professionals, evidence about inequalities and mental health service utilization. Starting with a critical appraisal of traditional psychiatric epidemiology, it moves into an exploration of the inequalities created by familial and neighborhood influences, service contact and challenges during the life span. Controversies in mental health debates, about violence and different forms of psychiatric treatment, are discussed within a framework of social inequalities.

"China Engages Global Health Governance" is the first book to systematically examine China's participation in the global health domain. It examines how and why China changed its stance on its HIV/AIDS epidemic and investigates China's emerging role in Africa's AIDS crisis and the controversial issue of access to anti-retroviral drugs for the continent's impoverished people. In scrutinizing China's evolving global role and its intentions for global governance and global health governance, this book argues that China is neither a system-defender nor a system-transformer of the liberal international order. While acting in concert with other major powers, China strives to defend itself from the encroachment of liberal democratic values on the world stage. In order to carve out some international space for itself and to fend off attacks by the liberal normative structure, China calls for multilateral cooperation in a "harmonious world." With the suggestion that there is no universally applicable blueprint for development, Beijing tries to shore up the principle of national sovereignty and non-intervention and strengthen ties with developing countries to consolidate a normative and political bulwark against liberal democratic values. In short, China possesses a hybrid national identity in its deepening engagement with global governance.

Many Yemenite Jews made their way to Israel in the first half of the century. Later, following the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, the rest of the community was flown in from the Yemen--an airlift of 50,000 people code-named Magic Carpet. These two groups, the early and late immigrants, afford a rare opportunity to describe the changes in health patterns during development toward a modern society. Using the fascinating but scanty information available from all manner of sources and comparing it with contemporary accounts of life in the Yemen today, Michael Weingarten relates the changes in the physical and psychological health of the Yemenite Jews to the various components of their new environment.

There was no modern medicine available in the Yemen, and most of the older generation of patients described in this study continue to believe in a threefold etiology of disease--magic, fate, and environment. Weingarten describes how traditional healers coexist with modern doctors and how, even when modern medicine is used, magical cures are expected. Although there are several sections dealing with largely medical data which will interest physicians and geneticists, most of the book is readable by anyone taking an interest in health and culture, including ethnologists, anthropologists, sociologists, health workers and planners, students of medical history, as well as all those interested in the study of Yemen, Judaic history, or Israeli culture.

The 1980s opened a discussion of the varying nature of health in different segments of the United States. Falling under the rubric of "health disparities," a great deal of research has been published demonstrating the substantial differences in health status within a population. The causes of health disparities are varied and not always clear but most researchers agree that disparities are a reflection of social and economic inequities and political injustice. One of the obstacles to addressing disparities is the lack of meaningful health data especially for vulnerable populations, which is often nonexistent despite being a critical factor for informing health programs and policies at the local level. This book provides a model for combating health disparities by describing how the authors gathered local health information, engaged the community at every step of the process, and created movement toward evidence-based sustainable change.
This book describes how a landmark health survey in Chicago generated dramatic data that are allowing investigators throughout the city to move from data to action and from observation to intervention. In providing a detailed description of how the community-focused collection and analysis of health data can serve as an impetus for improved well-being, Urban Health is an invaluable resource for researchers, community groups, students and professionals.

With the background of the 10 years' existence of the European Public Health Association (EUPHA) the present book deals with the developments and results of European Public Health in Science and Practice. The contributions involve actual aspects and issues of different topics in Public Health:
- Health care management and quality assurance in various settings
- Health promotion and prevention for different population groups
- Health related information and communication
- Health care policy and science.

The health care sector has become a major component of the contemporary econo mies of Japan and the United States. It absorbs significant proportions of the GDP in both countries and places increasing stress on private, government and corporate budgets. As their income rises, the citizens ofJapan and the United States choose to allocate increasing portions of it on health care services because ofthe direct contri bution of health care services to prolonged life expectancy, reduced morbidity, or other indicators of improved health and well-being. The health care sector is a ma jor source ofemployment and affects the lives of all citizens. Adequate health care services are expected to have an important contribution to the quality of human life in any society. With so much at stake, arrangements for planning, financing, and operating health care service systems have increasingly come to be regarded as im portant economic and political issues. The political importance of health care is evidenced by the health care reform proposals of the Clinton administration in the United States and the deep involve ment of the government in the medical care security system in Japan. As policy makers in both countries look ahead to the coming decades, they realize that the imperatives of economic restructuring, globalization, and their rapidly aging socie ties will affect the way in which health care is organized, delivered, and financed."

This visionary reframing of health and healthcare uses a complexity science approach to building healthcare systems that are accessible, effective, and prepared for change and challenges. Its holistic map for understanding the human organism emphasizes the interconnectedness of the individual's physical, psychological, cognitive, and sociocultural functioning. Applications of this approach are described in primary, specialist, and emergency care and at the organizational and policy levels, from translating findings to practice, to problem solving and evaluation. In this model, the differences between disease and illness and treating illness and restoring health are not mere wordplay, but instead are robust concepts reflecting real-world issues and their solutions. Based on the Proceedings of the 1st International Conference of Systems and Complexity for Healthcare, topics covered include: * Coping with complexity and uncertainty: insights from studying epidemiology in family medicine * Anticipation in complex systems: potential implications for improving safety and quality in healthcare * Monitoring variability and complexity at the bedside * Viewing mental health through the lens of complexity science * Ethical complexities in systems healthcare: what care and for whom? * The value of systems and complexity thinking to enable change in adaptive healthcare organizations supported by informatics * If the facts don't fit the theory, change the theory: implications for health system reform The Value of Systems and Complexity Sciences for Healthcare will interest and inspire health and disease researchers, health professionals, health care planners, health system financiers, health system administrators, health services administrators, health professional educators, and, last but not least, current and future patients.

In virtually all the developed countries of the Western world, people are living longer and reproducing less. At the same time, costs for the care of the elderly and infirm continue to rise dramatically. Given these facts, it should come as no surprise that we are experi- encing an ever-increasing concern with questions relating to the proper care and treatment of the aged. What responsibilities do soci- eties have to their aging citizens? What duties, if any, do grown chil- dren owe their parents? What markers should we use to determine one's status as "elderly"? Does treatment of pain in aged patients present special medical and/or moral problems? How can the com- peting claims of autonomy and optimal medical care be reconciled for elderly persons who require assisted living? When, if ever, should severely demented patients be included in nontherapeutic clinical tri- als? These questions, and others of similar interest to those con- cerned with the proper treatment of the aged, are discussed in depth in the articles included in this text. The essays in this volume of Biomedical Ethics Reviews fall loosely into two broad categories. The first four articles-those con- tributed by Sheila M. Neysmith, Allyson Robichaud, Jennifer Jackson, and Susan McCarthy-raise general questions concerning the propri- ety of Western society'S current mechanisms for dealing with and treat- ing elderly citizens. The remaining four articles-those by Simon Woods and Max Elstein, Marshall B.

Hardbound. This volume explores issues connected with health care providers, institutions, and patients. The focus of many of the articles is on changing patterns of care delivery and provision of care, as it affects these important groups of actors within the health care system. The articles range from those that focus on more specialized groups of patients, such as the elderly, to those that focus on people who deliver health care services to those that deal with more general issues of the restructuring of the US health care system.

To inform future research, treatment, and policy decisions, this book traces the scientific and social developments that shaped the current treatment model for depression in primary care over the past half century. While new strategies for diagnosing and treating depression have improved millions of people's lives, there is little evidence that the overall societal burden of depression has decreased. Most experts point to a gap between what psychiatrists know and what primary care doctors do to explain untreated depression. Callahan and Berrios argue, however, that the problem stems mainly from lack of a public health perspective, that prevailing etiologic models underestimate the roles of society and culture in causing depression and over-emphasize biological factors.
The current conceptual model for depression is a scientific and social invention of the last quarter century. Such models are important because they shape how society views people with emotional symptoms, defines who is sick, and determines who should get care. Most parents who seek treatment for depression receive antidepressant medications in primary care. The authors show that although depressed patients' help-seeking behavior and primary care doctors' clinical approach have changed little over the past half century, the field of primary care medicine has changed dramatically. They describe how the specific diagnoses and treatments developed by psychiatrists in the past 50 years have often collided with the non-specific approaches that dominate primary care practice. In examining the research seeking to close the gap between psychiatry and primary care, Callahan and Berrios offer public health models to explain the ongoing societal burden of depression. By exploring the history of depression in primary care, they open a pathway for improvements in the care of people with depression, where primary care physicians should play a greater leadership role in the future.