Public Sentinel

What are the ideal roles the mass media should play as an institution to strengthen democratic governance and thus bolster human development? Under what conditions do media systems succeed or fail to meet these objectives? And what strategic reforms would close the gap between the democratic promise and performance of media systems? Working within the notion of the democratic public sphere, 'Public Sentinel: News Media and Governance Reform' emphasizes the institutional or collective roles of the news media as watchdogs over the powerful, as agenda setters calling attention to social needs in natural and human-caused disasters and humanitarian crises, and as gatekeepers incorporating a diverse and balanced range of political perspectives and social actors. Each is vital to making democratic governance work in an effective, transparent, inclusive, and accountable manner. The capacity of media systems and thus individual reporters embedded within those institutions to fulfill these roles is constrained by the broader context of the journalistic profession, the market, and ultimately the state. Successive chapters apply these arguments to countries and regions worldwide. This study brought together a wide range of international experts under the auspices of the Communication for Governance and Accountability Program (CommGAP) at the World Bank and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University. The book is designed for policy makers and media professionals working within the international development community, national governments, and grassroots organizations, and for journalists, democratic activists, and scholars engaged in understanding mass communications, democratic governance, and development.

Public health is of concern to practicing chiropractors, as well as chiropractic students. The vast majority of chiropractors utilize public health concepts every day as an integral part of patient care. For instance, they give advice on risk factors that should be avoided and protective factors to be added by their patients to enhance healing and prevent illness. Pubic health is also part of the curriculum at all chiropractic colleges and is tested by the National Board. No public health textbooks are available that are specifically designed for the chiropractor. Consequently, college instructors are forced to make-do with class notes and generic texts that do not address the specific issues relevant to chiropractic. This book will not only be of interest to chiropractic students, but also practicing chiropractors because it will provide information they can utilize to provide better care by positively intervening with their patients and their communities regarding public health matters.

In Wildland Sentinel, Erika Billerbeck takes readers along for the ride as she and her colleagues sift through poaching investigations, chase down sex offenders in state parks, search for fugitives in wildlife areas, haul drunk boaters to jail, perform body recoveries, and face the chaos that comes with disaster response.

An alarming look at America’s other drug problem—medication safety! Drug misadventures are an all-too-frequent and deadly cause of adverse medical events. Prescribed Medications and the Public Health: Laying the Foundation for Risk Reduction explores ways to combat the widespread problem of adverse drug events (ADEs). This comprehensive book shows how our broken health care and medication use system often inflicts harm—most of it preventable—on patients. Strategies are presented to help health care managers, health professionals, regulators, and policymakers to dynamically improve the entire system. With the growing use of prescribed medications comes a rising number of adverse drug reactions, drug interactions, allergic reactions, and medication errors. Prescribed Medications and the Public Health discusses problems such as drug supply issues, drug defects, counterfeit drugs, limitations for oversight of Internet prescriptions, inaccurate splitting of pills, and poor administration of drugs. The book examines the issues from all angles, including patient considerations, drug factors, and unsafe practices that contribute to ADEs. Liability costs for drug injury are reviewed, along with effective practical strategies for preventing, reducing, detecting, and documenting adverse drug events. National and local plans are explored to help achieve the essential goal of greater safety throughout the system. The text is extensively referenced and includes approximately 50 figures and tables to clearly present information. Prescribed Medications and the Public Health reviews in detail how to battle these problems in both inpatient and ambulatory care: adverse drug reactions dangerous allergic reactions harmful drug interactions medication errors adverse vaccine reactions drug misadventures Prescribed Medications and the Public Health is crucial reading for medication safety officers; pharmacoepidemiologists; medication safety experts; educators and students in schools of pharmacy and public health, medicine, nursing, and hospital/health services management; health care managers; regulators; policymakers; and advocates for improving drug safety.

After experiencing the SARS outbreak in 2003, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan all invested in various techniques to mitigate future pandemics involving myriad cross-species interactions between humans and birds. In some locations microbiologists allied with veterinarians and birdwatchers to follow the mutations of flu viruses in birds and humans and create preparedness strategies, while in others, public health officials worked toward preventing pandemics by killing thousands of birds. In Avian Reservoirs Frédéric Keck offers a comparative analysis of these responses, tracing how the anticipation of bird flu pandemics has changed relations between birds and humans in China. Drawing on anthropological theory and ethnographic fieldwork, Keck demonstrates that varied strategies dealing with the threat of pandemics—stockpiling vaccines and samples in Taiwan, simulating pandemics in Singapore, and monitoring viruses and disease vectors in Hong Kong—reflect local geopolitical relations to mainland China. In outlining how interactions among pathogens, birds, and humans shape the way people imagine future pandemics, Keck illuminates how interspecies relations are crucial for protecting against such threats.

Political Public Relations maps and defines this emerging field, bringing together scholars from various disciplines—political communication, public relations and political science—to explore the area in detail. The volume connects differing schools of thought, bringing together theoretical and empirical investigations, and defines a field that is becoming increasingly important and prominent. It offers an international orientation, as the field of political public relations must be studied in the context of various political and communication systems to be fully understood. As a singular contribution to scholarship in public relations and political communication, this work fills a significant gap in the existing literature, and is certain to influence future theory and research.

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Being an impartial selection of the most exquisite essays and jeux d'esprits, principally prose, that appear in the newspapers and other publications.