Showing titles in Public Health

There are few visible markers of the accomplishments of public health. If epidemiologists do their jobs, nothing happens. An outbreak does not grow into an epidemic. A child does not go hungry. A would-be smoker never lights up. These achievements are rarely noticed or celebrated, but Caitlin Rivers lives for such victories. By making sure that things don’t happen, she and legions of scientists, practitioners, and policymakers change the course of history.

Dr. Ala Stanford knew she wanted to be a doctor by the time she was eight years old. But role models were few and far between in her working-class North Philly neighborhood. Her teachers were dismissive, and the realities of racism, sexism, and poverty threatened to derail her at every turn. Nevertheless, thanks to her faith, family, and the sheer strength of her will, today she is one of the vanishingly small number of Black women surgeons in America—and an unrelenting force in the fight for health justice.

There are dramatic differences in health between countries and within countries. But this is not a simple matter of rich and poor. These health inequalities defy usual explanations. Conventional approaches to improving health have emphasised access to technical solutions – improved medical care, sanitation, and control of disease vectors; or behaviours – smoking, drinking – obesity, linked to diabetes, heart disease and cancer. These approaches only go so far.

We all know that malaria is an infectious disease spread by mosquitos. Female Anopheles mosquitos spread the infection, a microorganism called a plasmodium, when taking a blood meal. But as the quotation often attributed to Mark Twain says “What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so”.

Anyone who has fallen off the conveyer belt of mainstream health care and into the shadowy corners of illness knows what a dark place it is to land. Where is the infrastructure, the information, the guidance? What should you do next? In Rebel Health, Susannah Fox draws on twenty years of tracking the expert networks of patients, survivors, and caregivers who have come of age between the cracks of the health care system to offer a way forward.

Do you know how to interpret your laboratory values? Would you like to learn how to read those parameters? From a clinical perspective, a laboratory value is the result of a test. The way this value is represented on a report is not standardized. For example, many laboratories use different formats to present the results of a blood test. Laboratory values interpretation remains an area where inconsistency exists. About 60-70% of decision-making in medicine was based on the results of laboratory tests. The laboratory values provide data in an objective form that relates to the patient's ...

Doctors Chuck Smith and Jason Hunt bring a unique and important perspective to the subject of addiction. Experts in the field, Smith and Hunt have personal, firsthand experience with the humiliation and shame that accompanies substance use disorder. But addiction, as they point out, is a disease, no less so than diabetes or heart disease, and it needs to be treated as such. If you, or a loved one, is struggling with addiction, you'll find help in Smith and Hunt's book. When one understands the science behind addiction, one can begin to move forward. Beyond the stigma lies hope.

La política de la 4T que dejó a México en ruinas. La "Cuarta Transformación" prometió mejorar la vida del pueblo a través de una estricta política de austeridad en el Gobierno; sin embargo, lo que parecía ser una medida positiva, pronto se convirtió en tragedia nacional. A medida que los gastos suntuosos se reducían, los programas vitales, también. El sistema de salud, perfectible pero funcional durante años, se vio imposibilitado para salvar vidas.

Dr. Antonia Novello is a vanguard in the United States and Puerto Rico, whose enduring commitment to service has left an indelible mark on the world of public health. Dr. Novello's story is one of challenges faced and overcame, and of shattering glass ceilings and opening doors for future generations of leaders.

The inspiring story of a Black doctor deeply affected by the violence in his childhood that plagued his Brooklyn community who was determined to be a force for change and dedicated himself to addressing trauma and violence as public health issues.

Through stories of survival, resilience, and even rebellion, Mueller and Abrutyn show how social environments can cause suicide and how they can be changed to help kids discover a life worth living. By revealing what it is like to live and die in one community, Life under Pressure offers tangible solutions to one of the twenty-first century's most tragic public health problems.

When an epidemic outbreak occurs, the most physical and financial harm historically falls upon the people who can least afford it: the economically and socially marginalized. Where people live and work, how they commute and socialize, and more have a huge impact on the risks we bear during an outbreak. In The Rich Flee and the Poor Take the Bus, economist Troy Tassier examines examples ranging from the 430 BCE plague of Athens to the COVID-19 pandemic to demonstrate why marginalized groups bear the largest burden of epidemic costs-and how to avoid these systemic failures in the future.

Jane Philpott has spent her life learning what makes people sick and what keeps people well. She has witnessed miracles in modern medicine. She has also watched children die of starvation in a world that has plenty of food. With Health for All, she sounds a clarion call for a radical disruption in a health care system that is broken—but not beyond repair. The vision is rooted in a deep-seated commitment to health equity.

In "Diverse Medicine: Building a Stronger and Healthier Nation," esteemed author and award-winning physician, Dr. Dale Okorodudu, presents a powerful and compelling call to action. With unwavering conviction, Dr. Okorodudu champions the transformative impact of racial diversity in medicine, revealing its potential to revolutionize healthcare for all Americans. Drawing upon personal experience as a physician and advocate, Dr. Okorodudu uncovers the deeply rooted disparities within our healthcare system and explores the profound implications of a lack of diversity. With captivating ...

The reality of being a plus-sized person isn't that every moment of your life is about being plus-sized―it’s that you’re trying to live the same kind of complicated, exciting, fun, beautiful and difficult life as everyone else. The only problem is that at every turn, society says ‘you should apologize for just living in your body’. This antagonistic messaging is pervasive across our media and culture, in ways that are both subtle and blatantly, cruelly overt. As obesity rates skyrocket, so does the shaming of those affected by it.

The opioid crisis is not an anomaly. Instead, it's a self-inflicted wound, driven by a catastrophically dysfunctional health care system, leading to what has become the largest public health crisis in 100 years. Fortunately, proven antidotes exist--all created and spearheaded by forward-looking citizen leaders and employers. It's time to scale these solutions nationwide, stop the crisis in its tracks and move us light years closer to solving the larger disaster that is our health care system. As you read this, countless people are leaving clinics and hospitals with over 30-day supplies of ...

This audiobook, narrated by Kimberly Yvonne Steele, is a comprehensive guide to navigating the complex and often confusing world of home care for seniors in New York. Written by elder law attorney Lori R. Somekh, who has over three decades of experience assisting clients with Medicaid home care, the book provides a clear and concise overview of the home care landscape in New York and the many obstacles that seniors and their families may face.

Performance-enhancing drug use is the scandal in big-time sports and Hollywood that won't go away. This is the first investigative account of the botched prosecution of Internet human growth hormone dealer Signature Pharmacy, and its implications. The who's-who cast of celebrities includes Sylvester Stallone and many other famous entertainers and athletes, and the story of the global marketing of HGH takes readers deep inside the treacheries of Olympic politics. Set against the backdrop of the most successful steroid bust in American history, Operation Raw Deal, THE CHINA SYNDROME ties ...

The kidney is an extraordinary organ—in many ways the regulator, the metronome, the keeper of the human body’s delicate equilibrium. On a given day, minute by minute, it purifies the body of toxins it encounters from diet, climate, activity, and injury. It allows us to be and to move in the world. And yet most of us know so very little about these extraordinary vessels nestled in our bodies—and indeed millions of us only really learn about them when they stop working. Nearly a million Americans every year have end stage kidney disease, about 37 million have some form of chronic kidney disease.

This book explores everything that has gone wrong with our modern food production and consumption approach. We examine the problems of modern industrialized agriculture, processed food, and food advertising; the ongoing lobbying wars controlling the information about the food provided to the public; and the relationship between diet and disease. You might be shocked to learn about some of these problems while expanding your understanding of the scientific discoveries underpinning these concerns.