After heart disease and cancer, the third leading cause of death in the United States is iatrogenic injury (avoidable injury or infection caused by a healer). Research suggests that avoidable errors claim several hundred thousand lives every year. The principal economic counterforce to such errors, malpractice litigation, has never been a particularly effective deterrent for a host of reasons, with fewer than 3% of negligently injured patients (or their families) receiving any compensation from a doctor or hospital's insurer. Closing Death's Door brings the psychology of decision making together with the law to explore ways to improve patient safety and reduce iatrogenic injury, when neither the healthcare industry itself nor the legal system has made a substantial dent in the problem. Beginning with an unflinching introduction to the problem of patient safety, the authors go on to define iatrogenic injury and its scope, shedding light on the culture and structure of a healthcare industry that has failed to effectively address the problem-and indeed that has influenced legislation to weaken existing legal protections and impede the adoption of potentially promising reforms. Examining the weak points in existing systems with an eye to using law to more effectively bring about improvement, the authors conclude by offering a set of ideas intended to start a conversation that will lead to new legal policies that lower the risk of harm to patients. Closing Death's Door is brought to vivid life by the stories of individuals and groups that have played leading roles in the nation's struggle with iatrogenic injury, and is essential reading for medical and legal professionals, as well as lawmakers and laypeople with an interest in healthcare policy.

"The Exposome: A Primer "is the first book dedicated to exposomics, detailing the purpose and scope of this emerging field of study, its practical applications and how it complements a broad range of disciplines. Genetic causes account for up to a third of all complex diseases. (As genomic approaches improve, this is likely to rise.) Environmental factors also influence human disease but, unlike with genetics, there is no standard or systematic way to measure the influence of environmental exposures. The exposome is an emerging concept that hopes to address this, measuring the effects of life-long environmental exposures on health and how these exposures can influence disease.

This systematic introduction considers topics of managing and integrating exposome data (including maps, models, computation, and systems biology), "-omics"-based technologies, and more. Both students and scientists in disciplines including toxicology, environmental health, epidemiology, and public health will benefit from this rigorous yet readable overview.

GeoComputation and Public Health is fundamentally a multi-disciplinary book, which presents an overview and case studies to exemplify numerous methods and solicitations in addressing vectors borne diseases (e.g, Visceral leishmaniasis, Malaria, Filaria). This book includes a practical coverage of the use of spatial analysis techniques in vector-borne disease using open source software solutions. Environmental factors (relief characters, climatology, ecology, vegetation, water bodies etc.) and socio-economic issues (housing type & pattern, education level, economic status, income level, domestics' animals, census data, etc) are investigated at micro -level and large scale in addressing the various vector-borne disease. This book will also generate a framework for interdisciplinary discussion, latest innovations, and discoveries on public health. The first section of the book highlights the basic and principal aspects of advanced computational practices. Other sections of the book contain geo-simulation, agent-based modeling, spatio-temporal analysis, geospatial data mining, various geocomputational applications, accuracy and uncertainty of geospatial models, applications in environmental, ecological, and biological modeling and analysis in public health research. This book will be useful to the postgraduate students of geography, remote sensing, ecology, environmental sciences and research scholars, along with health professionals looking to solve grand challenges and management on public health.

Simulating for a crisis is far more than creating a simulation of a crisis situation. In order for a simulation to be useful during a crisis, it should be created within the space of a few days to allow decision makers to use it as quickly as possible. Furthermore, during a crisis the aim is not to optimize just one factor, but to balance various, interdependent aspects of life. In the COVID-19 crisis, decisions had to be made concerning e.g. whether to close schools and restaurants, and the (economic) consequences of a 3 or 4-week lock-down had to be considered. As such, rather than one simulation focusing on a very limited aspect, a framework allowing the simulation of several different scenarios focusing on different aspects of the crisis was required. Moreover, the results of the simulations needed to be easily understandable and explainable: if a simulation indicates that closing schools has no effect, this can only be used if the decision makers can explain why this is the case. This book describes how a simulation framework was created for the COVID-19 crisis, and demonstrates how it was used to simulate a wide range of scenarios that were relevant for decision makers at the time. It also discusses the usefulness of the approach, and explains the decisions that had to be made along the way as well as the trade-offs. Lastly, the book examines the lessons learned and the directions for the further development of social simulation frameworks to make them better suited to crisis situations, and to foster a more resilient society.

Beginning with a survey of fundamental concepts associated with data integration, knowledge representation, and hypothesis generation from heterogeneous data sets, "Methods in Biomedical Informatics" provides a practical survey of methodologies used in biological, clinical, and public health contexts. These concepts provide the foundation for more advanced topics like information retrieval, natural language processing, Bayesian modeling, and learning classifier systems. The survey of topics then concludes with an exposition of essential methods associated with engineering, personalized medicine, and linking of genomic and clinical data. Within an overall context of the scientific method, "Methods in Biomedical Informatics" provides a practical coverage of topics that is specifically designed for: (1) domain experts seeking an understanding of biomedical informatics approaches for addressing specific methodological needs; or (2) biomedical informaticians seeking an approachable overview of methodologies that can be used in scenarios germane to biomedical research.
Contributors represent leading biomedical informatics experts: individuals who have demonstrated effective use of biomedical informatics methodologies in the real-world, high-quality biomedical applicationsMaterial is presented as a balance between foundational coverage of core topics in biomedical informatics with practical "in-the-trenches" scenarios.Contains appendices that function as primers on: (1) Unix; (2) Ruby; (3) Databases; and (4) Web Services.

From the early days of humankind to today, steady technological advances have greatly changed the landscape of farming. In the United States in particular, these changes have in turn impacted the scope of food production-and often not in a positive way. In The Poisoning of Americans, author Jacob Silver presents an in-depth, investigative expose into the production of Americans' food and how it is responsible for the failing health of US citizens.

The Poisoning of Americans gives an overview of the fundamentals of humans and the food they consume, as well as the essential nutrients they need and how those relate to health. It discusses the production of beef, poultry, and pork and the effects of the use of antibiotics and hormones. It addresses the consequences of the ubiquitous presence of corn in many areas of food and food production and the harmful results of this practice.

Though the essays address the flaws in the food production system, they also provide recommendations and ideas to help restore the natural state of American agriculture and help to produce healthier citizens.

Phytochemical Profiling of Commercially Important South African Plants comprises a carefully selected group of plant species that are of interest to researchers and industry partners who would like to investigate the commercialization of plant species. The book presents 25 botanicals selected based on commercial relevance. For each of the species, the following topics are covered: botanical description and distribution, phytochemistry (including chemical structures), HPTLC fingerprint analysis, UPLC analysis, and GC analysis (the latter only in the case of essential oil-bearing species). Using standard methodology, high-level chromatographic fingerprints have been developed for better understanding. Different methods are succinctly summarized allowing for the rapid identification of botanical raw materials and formulated consumer products. This book will be extremely valuable to researchers in the field who wish to rapidly identify the constituents and for those who want to prepare formulations of plant material for commercial applications. This work will also be a valuable resource in the field of pharmacognosy.

Practical Aspects of Vaccine Development provides an academic and industry perspective on vaccine development and manufacturing. With the increasing complexity of vaccine products in development, there is a need for a comprehensive review of the current state of the industry and challenges being encountered. While formulation scientists working in biotherapeutic development may be familiar with proteins, vaccines present unique challenges. Vaccines include a wide range of components including proteins, polysaccharides, protein-polysaccharide conjugates, adjuvants, and more. The container closure system may also be unique, and the product may require freezing storage or lyophilization based on the stability of the vaccine components. Based on the route of delivery, novel technologies and devices may be required. Covering formulation development, manufacture, and delivery considerations of vaccine production, this book is essential to formulation scientists, researchers in vaccine development throughout medical and life sciences, and advanced students.