Public Health & Preventive Medicine books

Much of the debate about health policy in the United States has focused on the availability of health insurance coverage and the relatively large number of individuals who are uninsured. While tackling the problem of the uninsured might improve access to and utilization of health care, it would likely have little effect on the health of the population, as there is only a weak connection between health insurance coverage and health. Expanding health insurance coverage alone is unlikely to significantly improve the health of the population or narrow health disparities within the population, given that many of the major causes of poor health such as smoking, obesity, and physical inactivity are largely unaffected by health insurance. The narrow focus on the uninsured in the health policy debate comes at the expense of other policies that could improve health faster and more significantly for every dollar spent. It is well known that the United States spends approximately twice as much per capita on health care as most other developed nations, but that there is little difference in population health between the United States and other developed nations. This suggests that we are on the 'flat part of the curve' of health care spending with respect to health and as a result need to pursue other approaches for improving population health. In light of the imbalance in the health policy debate in the US, in November 2007, the Institute of Government and Public Affairs and the College of Medicine of the University of Illinois sponsored a conference entitled, Beyond Health Insurance: Public Policy to Improve Health. The purpose of the conference was to make available to the public new research on policies that can significantly improve the health of the US population. The conference focused on four areas: reducing racial and ethnic health disparities, preventing disease and promoting health, developing and regulating pharmaceuticals, and improving consumer information.

This is the tenth volume in a series on research in community and mental health.

This is the eighth volume in a series on research in community and mental health.

Public health has, for many years, been concerned with efforts to increase the efficiency of health care delivery, to measure changes in health care resource utilization and associated costs, and to link these changes to different types of interventions. These efforts, as well as collaboration between biopharmaceutical organizations, producers of medical devices, and managed care and public health organizations, have been enhanced by the opportunities created within the fast growing field of outcomes research. This volume presents studies contributing to the enhancement of the outcomes research paradigm by incorporating economic and social interactions within the health care delivery, clinical decision-making and outcomes systems. A multidisciplinary team of scientists in the fields of outcomes research, pharmacoeconomics, public health, health services research, and health economics address such complex problems as: benefits and cost of advancements in genetic technologies; methodologies for constructing health care utilization and cost estimates; and the effect of insurance type on resource utilization and health outcomes. Other studies consider both the types of drugs purchased and the prices paid, pharmaceutical spending and health outcomes, incremental advantages of newer treatments, willingness to pay measurements, disease-specific impacts on human capital and quality of life, and modelling clinical trial results. One of the most important findings in this book is the description of the role of low energy in the symptomatology of depression and its strong relationship with absenteeism, work productivity and social functioning. Another paper documents the disease-specific mortality, case-fatality and annual health care utilization in diabetics and establishes the association of respiratory conditions with elevated mortality among diabetics. The work contains other papers which provide significant results in cardiovascular, infectious, central nervous system disease areas as well as in quality of life and health outcomes measurements.

This three part monograph aims to enable road safety researchers and professionals to interpret correctly the results of one of the main sources of knowledge about the effect of road safety engineering measures, the "observational Before-After study". Part I, Essentials - contains information the author regards as essential for forming an opinion of results obtained by others, and for planning and analysing such a study. This is written to be accessible to all. Part II, Adaptations of conventional approaches - explains how to avoid the errors and improve the results obtained from the predominant methods currently used. This Part employs algebra and statistical analysis. Part III, Elements of a new approach - presents new approaches to improve future methods of observation and analysis.

In this volume of "Research in the Sociology of Health Care" a variety of topics concerning patients, consumers, providers and caregivers are covered.

This volume explores issues connected with quality, planning of services and access concerns especially as linked with providers of care, health care institutions, and patients. Changes have continued to occur within the field but have been led by overall marketplace trends. Papers in this volume are presented in four parts covering changing models of health care. In Part I topics come from a broad perspective to include: development of newer models of care, more traditional areas such as the medical profession and the patient or the hospital and the patient, the changes that alternative medicine brings to issues of quality of care and access and planning, and of citizen participation in health planning. Part II deals with federal programs such as Medicare and Medicaid and access and quality issues within those programs. Part III covers the challenges of planning for long-term care needs and services. And Part IV explores other aspects of the changing health care delivery system: changes in nursing, midwifery, and rural health care and provides linkages to quality, access, and planning issues. This excellent work helps the reader to think more carefully and more creatively about issues of quality of care, access to care, and planning for services.

This volume of "Research in Community and Mental Health" is divided into two main sections: social networks within and between organizations and social networks and interpersonal relationships.

Research on social inequalities has a very long tradition in sociological research, and discussion of the impact of social inequalities on health and health care delivery has long been one of the more important topics covered by medical sociologists. The research presented in this volume varies in its coverage and its approach to issues of social inequality in health and health care delivery. This volume includes both theoretical and quantitative papers, and deals with complex understandings of macro system issues, the impact of the patient and individual factors on health and health care and the impact of the provider and interaction between providers and patients. The first section focuses on macro system issues and includes both theoretical approaches to the topic and quantitative approaches. The second section includes articles with a greater focus on patient characteristics. These articles vary greatly in their coverage, with some focusing on the US as a whole, and others on specific sections of the US or subgroups within the population such as African American women or the elderly. The third section focuses on providers and issues of social inequality and health care delivery. These papers examine issues of gender, race and poverty as examples of sources of inequality in modern societies. In contrast to the second section these papers pay more attention to individual factors and the focus of the chapters is on aspects of health care providers. Research on providers of care is another long, important research tradition within medical sociology. Social Inequalities, Health and Health Care Delivery should be useful reading for medical sociologists and people working in other social science disciplines studying health-related issues. The volume also provides information for health services researchers, policy analysts and public health researchers.