Environmental Determinants Of Human Health

The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.

Polluted air and contaminated food and water are major causes of human health deterioration, but public health policy has long struggled to effectively address these concerns. This timely book--written for a wide audience of policy makers, researchers, and general readers--synthesizes what we already know about environmental hazards, identifies the gaps in our knowledge, and provides a roadmap for reducing human exposure to environmental pollution. With contributions from leading experts, Environmental Determinants of Human Health examines numerous pollutants, both inorganic and organic, in the context of their human health impacts. Individual chapters explore exposure pathways, macroeconomic impacts of human health deterioration, technological and non-technological methods for reducing exposures, monetary and non-monetary benefits from exposure reduction, and risk communication and awareness, including citizen participation approaches. This volume is a crucial text for policy makers requiring scientific justification for the development of new environmental regulations, scientists researching public health and environmental contamination, and members of the public interested in human health issues.

This book discusses the natural and anthropogenic determinants of the environment and their impact on human health. It throws light on the perspectives of climate change with case studies from Australia, India, Italy, and Latin America. Themes covered are ecology of antibiotic resistant microorganisms, pesticide and heavy metal (arsenic) problems in natural environment; molecular advances in understanding of microbial interactions; ecological studies of human/animal health and diseases; food security, technological developments and more. The various chapters incorporate both theoretical and applied aspects and may serve as baseline information for future research through which significant development is possible.

The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.

How do communities protect and improve the health of their populations? Health care is part of the answer but so are environmental protections, social and educational services, adequate nutrition, and a host of other activities. With concern over funding constraints, making sure such activities are efficient and effective is becoming a high priority. Improving Health in the Community explains how population-based performance monitoring programs can help communities point their efforts in the right direction. Within a broad definition of community health, the committee addresses factors surrounding the implementation of performance monitoring and explores the "why" and "how to" of establishing mechanisms to monitor the performance of those who can influence community health. The book offers a policy framework, applies a multidimensional model of the determinants of health, and provides sets of prototype performance indicators for specific health issues. Improving Health in the Community presents an attainable vision of a process that can achieve community-wide health benefits.

Raising the average human lifespan by a decade or more will change our world. The future is not about whether this will happen; it is about what we should do when it happens. Even the most pessimistic assertions about the future of our environment are underestimating the extent of the problem. There is simply no model in which more years of life does not equate to more people and in which that does not lead to more crowding, environmental degradation, more consumption, and more waste. Hence, as we prolong life, these environmental crises will be further exacerbated. With current diets and production practices, feeding 7,6 billion people is degrading terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, depleting water resources, and driving climate changes. The challenges of today are not just population, and it’s not just consumption, it is waste also. Thanks to things such as cars, planes, big homes, deforestation and so forth, the annual carbon dioxide emissions of an average are three times as high as it should be. It is likely that this signals that the current level of dividends is unsustainable, hence, we use and return little of value to our natural world. In our book, we address the questions related to environmental health challenges that include contamination of air, water, and soil, and car transportation. In order to better understand natural, industrial, and social-environmental hazards, we have to think of them in a broader context (i.e., physical, chemical, biological, and cultural). We hope that the presented publication gives the reader a broader perspective on the issues related to environmental health challenges in contemporary society in the coming years.

Sixth edition of the hugely successful, internationally recognised textbook on global public health and epidemiology, with 3 volumes comprehensively covering the scope, methods, and practice of the discipline

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.