Essential Public Health

A theoretical and practical introduction to the basics of public health, written for a multidisciplinary audience.

Donaldsons’ Essential Public Health has been in continuous print for 35 years, evolving through successive editions. This unrivalled record of success for a textbook of public health shows the enduring appeal of its content, style, and accessibility to generations of students and practitioners. For many of today’s national and global public health leaders, the book was their guide as they began their careers, their benchmark as they passed their examinations and professional accreditation, and remains their companion as a source of reference and refreshed knowledge for teaching and practice. The book brings together, in one volume, the main health problems experienced by populations and by the key groups within them, the strategies for promoting health and preventing disease, the principles and applications of epidemiology, the main themes of health policy, and a description of health service provision. This fourth edition marks the biggest change to the book in 20 years. For the first time it sets each key subject area in a global health context, whilst retaining its traditional strength in covering population health for the United Kingdom. New and revised chapters for this edition include: Health in a changing world Communicable diseases Non-communicable diseases Social determinants of health Quality and safety of healthcare Mental health Disability Health in later life Environment and health History of public health The content is wide-ranging and written in an accessible and engaging style. It covers topics as diverse as: the story of the 2014 Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa; the elements of tobacco control policy; the health impact of climate change; the global health organisational architecture; the concept of health; the new paradigm of public mental health; the biological pathways that link to the health effects of social deprivation; the ideal of universal health coverage; the essentials of immunisation; the basis of healthy ageing; the historical events that led to the germ theory of disease and the Victorian sanitary revolution. This new edition is essential reading for all undergraduate and postgraduate students of public health, medicine, nursing, health policy, social science, and public sector management. Those embarking on a career in public health will find it of great value throughout their professional life. The book is also an extremely useful resource for established practitioners in primary care, doctors, senior nurses, health system managers, healthcare policy makers, civil servants in ministries of health, and members of boards of health organisations.

"The Nation has lost sight of its public health goals and has allowed the system of public health to fall into 'disarray'," from The Future of Public Health. This startling book contains proposals for ensuring that public health service programs are efficient and effective enough to deal not only with the topics of today, but also with those of tomorrow. In addition, the authors make recommendations for core functions in public health assessment, policy development, and service assurances, and identify the level of government--federal, state, and local--at which these functions would best be handled.

This comprehensive text is an excellent introduction to the field of public health. The book is divided into two parts. Part I defines and describes the public health system, provide concepts and tools for measuring health in populations, characterizes the relationship of the public health system with medical care and other elements of the overall health system, and identifies government’s unique contributions through federal, state, and local public health agencies.Important Notice: The digital edition of this book is missing some of the images or content found in the physical edition

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.

As threats of infectious disease grow and the nation confronts chronic health problems such as diabetes and obesity, health professionals, citizens, and community stakeholders must address increasingly complex ethical conflicts about public health policies and practices. Essentials of Public Health Ethics introduces students to the field of public health ethics, by focusing on cases. Topics span the discipline of public health and integrate materials, concepts, and frameworks from numerous fields in public health, such as health promotion, environmental health and health policy. By delving into both historical and contemporary cases, including international cases, the authors investigate the evolution and impact of various understandings of the concept of “the public” over time, i.e., the public not only as a numerical population that can be defined and measured, but also as a political group with legally defined obligations and relationships, as well as diverse cultural and moral understandings. While the text examines a range of philosophical theories and contemporary perspectives, it is written in a way that presupposes no previous exposure to the philosophical concepts but at the same time provides challenging cases for students who do have more advanced knowledge. Thus the book should be useful in Schools and Programs in Public Health as well as for undergraduate public health courses in liberal arts institutions and for health sciences students at the advanced undergraduate and graduate levels.

As one of the foundational texts in the Essential Public Health series, Essentials of Public Health, Fourth Edition -- formerly authored by Turnock -- is an excellent introduction to the field of public health, covering public health practice, government public health, and careers in public health. After defining Public Health and looking at the current U.S. public health system and practice, the book looks at population health measurement, policy development, and collaboration between the public health and the health system. Final chapters explore career opportunities in public health administration, epidemiology, public health nursing, and health education as well as emerging ones such as health information technologists, emergency managers, and more. Helpful learning tools such as chapter exercises and discussion questions, making it an ideal text to prepare your students for the profession of public health.

Essential Dental Public Health, Second Edition is an ideal introduction for undergraduate dental students to the field of public health. With a strong emphasis on evidence-based medicine, this guide puts clinical practice in context with the help of a problem based approach to learning, illustrations and lists of further reading.