This book reviews the global preparedness to pandemic challenges to human health and development by compiling the brilliant ideas of experts and entrepreneurs from the fields of public health, health economics, environmental engineering, pharmaceutical interventions, and other related fields. This book proposes a collective effort to take pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response seriously and prioritize it accordingly to avoid the potential catastrophe in this inter-connected world by summarizing the lessons learned from the COVID-19. In the context of today's climate change and its association with human health, the book presents the need for aligning climate and health goals and puts up with the multi-sectors and low-carbon economic strategies where health is prioritized in development. Furthermore, when more and more novel medical and pharmaceutical items worldwide are launched, the health system could be improved. With the help of digital health, artificial intelligence (AI), and other innovative forms of healthcare products, the efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare services provision could be promoted, leading to a more promising future for human health. This book vividly presents how such new technologies are applied to build an intelligent and robust health system and how innovations can be used to promote human health.

This book uses an economic approach to analyze the socioeconomic causes and consequences of mental health disorders in China, with a special focus on mental depression. Based on a nationally representative dataset, we first investigate the prevalence and distribution of depression and depressive symptoms among China’s adult population, and then use several econometric methods to estimate the multi-dimensional disease burden of the mental disorder, such as its direct medical costs, its indirect economic costs, and its hidden costs on social trust and life satisfaction. In addition, we specifically address the socioeconomic determinants of mental health by examining how the relative and absolute economic status may determine people’s mental depression. Lastly, we propose an analytical framework to evaluate the four major hurdles that cause the treatment gaps of mental health care, and discuss the policy options to overcome such hurdles and to address the unmet mental healthcare needs in China and other developing countries. The book may facilitate our understanding on the complex determinants and implications of the rising prevalence of mental health disorders in developing countries like China. In addition to the students, teachers, and researchers in the fields of health economics and public health, the book may also be of interest to health policy makers and non-government agencies who are concerned with addressing the global mental healthcare challenges using economic policy tools.