As public health issues have gained an increasingly high political profile, the need for policy and management decisions to be informed by robust evidence of the effectiveness is now viewed as crucial. While evidence-based medicine is a well accepted feature in clinical health care, public health interventions are inherently more complex and present both significant challenges and opportunities for advancing this approach. In England, developments include the setting up of the Centre of Public Health Excellence, at the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), with the responsibility for providing evidence and guidelines on the effectiveness of interventions and programmes in priority areas of public health. Further important contributions are also being made by many other research centres and groups. This book presents many of these contributions and provides a state of the art compendium on this subject. Inequality in health is a widespread problem, and the themes discussed here can be used for international comparison and application. Public health evidence examines: international trends in social inequalities in health; the role of evidence in public health policy development and practice; the infrastructure of the UK evidence-based approach; selected examples of how evidence is being applied to reduce health inequalities in England; the methodological challenges involved in evaluating interventions and the synthesis of evidence; and how to take this approach forward. The key message is that tackling health inequalities and implementing the evidence-based approach will require commitment from all those involved; researchers, academics, policy makers, the public and private sector, practitioners, the NHS, and local government. But health inequalities are a common problem facing more developed countries, and the book has international relevance. This timely contribution pushes the boundaries of thinking on research in public health.

Ulcerative colitis is a chronic condition that has a number of long-term complications and creates certain short-term problems for the sufferer. Michael Kelly, himself a sufferer, describes the experience of ulcerative colitis from the perspective of men and women who have had the disease and examines the social and psychological issues surrounding the condition.

Ulcerative colitis is a chronic condition that has a number of long-term complications and creates certain short-term problems for the sufferer. Michael Kelly, himself a sufferer, describes the experience of ulcerative colitis from the perspective of men and women who have had the disease and examines the social and psychological issues surrounding the condition. This book should be of interest to professionals in training and practice in the fields of medicine, nursing, medical sociology and social medicine.

This book is open access under a CC BY license. This book is the first to develop explicit methods for evaluating evidence of mechanisms in the field of medicine. It explains why it can be important to make this evidence explicit, and describes how to take such evidence into account in the evidence appraisal process. In addition, it develops procedures for seeking evidence of mechanisms, for evaluating evidence of mechanisms, and for combining this evaluation with evidence of association in order to yield an overall assessment of effectiveness. Evidence-based medicine seeks to achieve improved health outcomes by making evidence explicit and by developing explicit methods for evaluating it. To date, evidence-based medicine has largely focused on evidence of association produced by clinical studies. As such, it has tended to overlook evidence of pathophysiological mechanisms and evidence of the mechanisms of action of interventions. The book offers a useful guide for all those whose work involves evaluating evidence in the health sciences, including those who need to determine the effectiveness of health interventions and those who need to ascertain the effects of environmental exposures.

Nico is committed to earning his place among entrepreneurs like his father who has amassed a fortune through legal businesses and criminal enterprises. Whether he is successful depends upon his ability to negotiate the sale of a near priceless stolen artifact and survive the serious risks encountered along the way. Despite his best efforts and help from his father's dark associates, there are always unknown variables that can jeopardize his plans, as well as his life. But, help can also emerge from unexpected sources and unlikely characters that are struggling through entanglements of their own. Life is unpredictable much of the time and very fragile, as Nico painfully learns as his endeavors take him from the elegance of Europe to the tropical waters off Hawaii's shoreline. The choice between salvation and damnation becomes all too real. A young man's resolve and paternal bonds are severely tested by ambition and greed resulting in theft and murder across the globe.

This slide presentation reviews the working of the Supplier Assessment Program at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The program supports many GSFC projects to ensure suppliers are aware of and are following the contractual requirements, to provide an independent assessment of the suppliers' processes, and provide suppliers' safety and mission assurance organizations information to make the changes within their organization.

This slide presentation reviews the working of the Supplier Assessment Program at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The program supports many GSFC projects to ensure suppliers are aware of and are following the contractual requirements, to provide an independent assessment of the suppliers' processes, and provide suppliers' safety and mission assurance organizations information to make the changes within their organization.