Meeting The Population Challenge

This book is about the challenge posed by the unprecedented growth of the world's population and the response that has been made to that challenge by the United Nations.

This book broadens and deepens understanding of a wide range of population-climate change linkages. Incorporating population dynamics into research, policymaking and advocacy around climate change is critical for understanding trajectory of global greenhouse gas emissions, for developing and implementing adaptation plans and thus for global and national efforts to curtail this threat. The papers in this volume provide a substantive and methodological guide to the current state of knowledge on issues such as population growth and size and emissions; population vulnerability and adaptation linked to health, gender disparities and children; migration and urbanization; and the data and analytical needs for the next stages of policy-relevant research.

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.

Despite rapidly decreasing rates of population growth caused by reduced fertility in the majority of world regions, demographers are predicting that the world's population will still double by the year 2050. The question is therefore no longer the traditional one of whether the planet can support so many people, but how to provide a sustainable future for ten billion individuals. Quantitative problems have become ethical ones. Coping with Population Challenges addresses these issues in the context of international debate and agreements since the first World Population Plan of Action in 1974 to the 20-year Programme of Action adopted at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994. The author describes how the Programme of Action focalizes on women's issues, reproductive choice and the notion of the individual. However, she identifies a number of important but neglected areas of the debate that the Programme failed to address and brings to light some of the inconsistencies that need to be resolved if the Programme is to be implemented. The author also looks at the underlying ethical dimension of all choices relating to the population issue and suggests measures and machinery for giving effect to states' commitments, including reformulating problems and defining the appropriate economic framework for solutions. The book is an excellent introduction for the non-specialist to a very topical debate, and a useful reference for researchers. LOUISE LASSONDE is director of the Fondation du Devenir, Geneva. In her capacity as anthropologist and demographer, Dr Lassondc has worked closely with the United Nations and non-governmental organizations in many countries. Originally published in 1997

Can we provide a sustainable future for the 10 billion individuals predicted to populate the world by 2050. This book describes how the Programme of Action, adopted at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, focussed on women's issues, reproductive choice and the notion of the individual. This book identifies a number of important but neglected area of the debate that the Programme failed to address, and brings to light some of the inconsistencies that need to be resolved if the Programme is to be implemented.

Hospitals and nursing homes are responding to changes in the health care system by modifying staffing levels and the mix of nursing personnel. But do these changes endanger the quality of patient care? Do nursing staff suffer increased rates of injury, illness, or stress because of changing workplace demands? These questions are addressed in Nursing Staff in Hospitals and Nursing Homes, a thorough and authoritative look at today's health care system that also takes a long-term view of staffing needs for nursing as the nation moves into the next century. The committee draws fundamental conclusions about the evolving role of nurses in hospitals and nursing homes and presents recommendations about staffing decisions, nursing training, measurement of quality, reimbursement, and other areas. The volume also discusses work-related injuries, violence toward and abuse of nursing staffs, and stress among nursing personnelâ€"and examines whether these problems are related to staffing levels. Included is a readable overview of the underlying trends in health care that have given rise to urgent questions about nurse staffing: population changes, budget pressures, and the introduction of new technologies. Nursing Staff in Hospitals and Nursing Homes provides a straightforward examination of complex and sensitive issues surround the role and value of nursing on our health care system.

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.