Health policy is a central preoccupation of many, if not all, developing countries. This innovative book presents a selection of ten studies illustrating that carefully conducted research can address common health policy issues.The studies included in this book exemplify the major gains to patients and citizens that can accrue from research efforts, stimulating research capacity in developing countries. Although many of the challenges confronting health systems are universal, it is often the case that research results derived from developed countries can be misleading when applied to low or middle-income settings. The authors also demonstrate the best examples of successful research on health policies and systems from diverse countries such as Argentina, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Sri Lanka and Taiwan. This insightful book will be a valuable research tool for academics, researchers and policymakers in economics and health. International agencies interested in applied research in health policy and economics will also find it a stimulating read.

First published in 1981, this book contains a series of sociological essays translated from Italian into English. It shows how Italian sociology offers a highly original blend of economic and sociological analyses in addressing Italy's main social problems and how its themes and methods could profitably be integrated into other sociological traditions. The anthology uses Italy as an illustration in examining social and sociological themes of crucial concern to the international social scientific community. In a substantial introduction Diana Pinto argues that Italy can be seen as a 'metaphor' for wider international debates about development and modernisation.

Israel has changed. The country was born in Europe's shadow, haunted by the Holocaust and inspired by the Enlightenment. But for Israelis today, Europe is hardly relevant, and the country's ties to the broader West, even to America, are fraying. Where is Israel heading? How do citizens of an increasingly diverse nation see themselves globally and historically? In this revealing portrait of the new Israel, Diana Pinto presents a country simultaneously moving forward and backward, looking outward and turning in on itself. In business, Israel is forging new links with the giants of Asia, and its booming science and technology sectors are helping define the future for the entire world. But in politics and religion, Israelis are increasingly self-absorbed, building literal and metaphorical walls against hostile neighbors and turning to ancient religious precepts for guidance here and now. Pinto captures the new moods and mindsets, the anxieties and hopes of Israelis today in sharply drawn sketches of symbolically charged settings. She takes us on the roads to Jerusalem, to border control at Ben Gurion Airport, to a major Israeli conference in Jerusalem, to a hill overlooking the Dome of the Rock and Temple Mount, to the heart of Israel's high-tech economy, and to sparkling new malls and restaurants where people of different identities share nothing more than a desire to ignore one another. Vivid and passionate but underpinned by deep analysis, this is a profound and sometimes unsettling account of a country that is no longer where we might think.

Este libro presenta los resultados de investigacion de un trabajo realizado en el corregimiento El Valle (Choco: Colombia) y que tuvo como principales objetivos evaluar el estado de los mamiferos medianos y grandes mediante la definicion de su abundancia relativa, diversidad y composicion. Adicionalmente estudiamos la relacion, en terminos de los diferentes usos y conocimientos, que la comunidad local establece con la fauna y en general con los recursos naturales de la exuberante selva humeda de esta localidad del Choco colombiano. Implementamos principios etnozoologicos para involucrar la comunidad a la investigacion y para estudiar sus conceptos a cerca de la fauna y su uso. Esperamos que los resultados presentados aqui contribuyan al conocimiento de la diversidad de los mamiferos del choco, de los procesos que los afectan y de sus relaciones con la comunidad local de El Valle."