Prescription For A Healthy Nation

Introducing a new way of thinking about health: public health experts Tom Farley and Deborah A. Cohen show us that the antidote to our ever-growing rates of obesity and chronic diseases, such as heart disease and diabetes, lies not in our medical care system or in more health education but rather in how our environment affects our behavior.

In Roads to Health, G. Geltner demonstrates that urban dwellers in medieval Italy had a keen sense of the dangers to their health posed by conditions of overcrowding, shortages of food and clean water, air pollution, and the improper disposal of human and animal waste. He consults scientific, narrative, and normative sources that detailed and consistently denounced the physical and environmental hazards urban communities faced: latrines improperly installed and sewers blocked; animals left to roam free and carcasses left rotting on public byways; and thoroughfares congested by artisanal and commercial activities that impeded circulation, polluted waterways, and raised miasmas. However, as Geltner shows, numerous administrative records also offer ample evidence of the concrete measures cities took to ameliorate unhealthy conditions. Toiling on the frontlines were public functionaries generally known as viarii, or "road-masters," appointed to maintain their community's infrastructures and police pertinent human and animal behavior. Operating on a parallel track were the camparii, or "field-masters," charged with protecting the city's hinterlands and thereby the quality of what would reach urban markets, taverns, ovens, and mills. Roads to Health provides a critical overview of the mandates and activities of the viarii and camparii as enforcers of preventive health and safety policies between roughly 1250 and 1500, and offers three extended case studies, for Lucca, Bologna, and the smaller Piedmont town of Pinerolo. In telling their stories, Geltner contends that preventive health practices, while scientifically informed, emerged neither solely from a centralized regime nor as a reaction to the onset of the Black Death. Instead, they were typically negotiated by diverse stakeholders, including neighborhood residents, officials, artisans, and clergymen, and fostered throughout the centuries by a steady concern for people's greater health.

A civically minded approach to public health, perfect for students on any career path Understanding the Science and Practice of Public Health is an exciting new textbook designed specifically for introductory public health courses at the college level. In a world rapidly being challenged by climate change, starvation, water shortages, and epidemics—and in a nation plagued by obesity, diabetes, early onset cardiovascular disease, cancer, and gun violence—this book provides students with crucial information that they’ll need to understand what’s going on around them. Thematically, this book focuses on the viewpoint that “We the People” have the ultimate responsibility to collectively assure the conditions that allow people to successfully seek health and well-being. Public health is a public responsibility (a maxim often repeated in the book), and college and university students must be fully informed to optimally meet this vital civic obligation. Written to be accessible to students in any major, this unique text prepares students to participate in the daily actions needed (including advocacy and support of health-related regulations and policy) to become participants in public health practice, rather than passive recipients. Readers will: Get an accessible introduction to the most pressing public health issues of today Learn how public health is promoted in society using real-world examples Become knowledgeable about public health so you can make informed decisions at the voting booth and in daily life Discover the practice of public health as it applies to pandemics, substance abuse, climate change, gun violence, and more The science and practice of public health depends on a well-informed and highly engaged population of civic-minded adults. This book will enable students’ enthusiastic participation in savings lives and promoting health—no matter what career path they decide to pursue.

This engaging series examines various controversial topics present in today's society.

**First Place Grand Prize Winner for Non-Fiction books at the 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards!! Congratulations Mary!!**

Offers an overview of the history of college student health services and discusses administration, clinical issues, and disease prevention and immunization.

This latest version of Information Resources in Toxicology (IRT) continues a tradition established in 1982 with the publication of the first edition in presenting an extensive itemization, review, and commentary on the information infrastructure of the field. This book is a unique wide-ranging, international, annotated bibliography and compendium of major resources in toxicology and allied fields such as environmental and occupational health, chemical safety, and risk assessment. Thoroughly updated, the current edition analyzes technological changes and is rife with online tools and links to Web sites. IRT-IV is highly structured, providing easy access to its information. Among the “hot topics covered are Disaster Preparedness and Management, Nanotechnology, Omics, the Precautionary Principle, Risk Assessment, and Biological, Chemical and Radioactive Terrorism and Warfare are among the designated. • International in scope, with contributions from over 30 countries • Numerous key references and relevant Web links • Concise narratives about toxicologic sub-disciplines • Valuable appendices such as the IUPAC Glossary of Terms in Toxicology • Authored by experts in their respective sub-disciplines within toxicology