POPULATION HEALTH SCIENCE formalizes an emerging discipline at the crossroads of social and medical sciences, demography, and economics--an emerging approach to population studies that represents a seismic shift in how traditional health sciences measure and observe health events. Bringing together theories and methods from diverse fields, this text provides grounding in the factors that shape population health. The overall approach is one of consequentialist science: designing creative studies that identify causal factors in health with multidisciplinary rigor. Distilled into nine foundational principles, this book guides readers through population science studies that strategically incorporate: · macrosocial factors · multilevel, lifecourse, and systems theories · prevention science fundamentals · return on investment · equity and efficiency Harnessing the power of scientific inquiry and codifying the knowledge base for a burgeoning field, POPULATION HEALTH SCIENCE arms readers with tools to shift the curve of population health.
Featuring Engaging Podcasts Highlighting Major Public Health Case Studies in all 15 Chapters! Public Health: An Introduction to the Science and Practice of Population Health is a foundational textbook designed for students who are launching their public health studies and preparing for professions in the field. Our health is generated throughout our lives and by the world around us—by where we live, where we work, and who we interact with on a daily basis. This book, therefore, takes a unique approach to teach public health. It combines an eco-social framework with a life course perspective on population health to help the student understand how our experiences and context shape our health and how this informs the practice of public health. Written by leading public health educators, the textbook begins with the foundations—a history of public health and a discussion of the core values of health equity and disease prevention. An engaging survey of the eco-social framework and life course factors affecting health follows. The book concludes with a section dedicated to population health methods, implementation science, community engagement, advocacy, and health promotion. The book is illustrated throughout by cases that cross disciplines, that engage the student with issues of contemporary concern that are the remit of public health, and that offer systematic analyses that point toward solutions. With a focused approach to public health that guides the student through the causes of health—across levels and across stages in the life course—this groundbreaking, first-of-its-kind textbook integrates the core components of the field in clear and lucid language. Timely and relevant case studies, practical learning objectives, discussion questions in all chapters, numerous tables and illustrations throughout, chapter-based podcasts, and more make Public Health an innovative and lively platform for understanding the science of population health and the practice of public health. Key Features: A modern approach to the field that grounds the study of public health in life course and eco-social frameworks to better organize the science of population health and the practice of public health Explains the central role that prevention and health equity play in improving population health Features case studies that discuss contemporary issues affecting population health, including heart disease, Ebola, environmental exposures, gun violence, the opioid epidemic, health policy, and many more High volume of figures and tables to illustrate key points Includes a robust Instructor ancillary package with PowerPoints, an Instructor’s Manual, test banks, discussion questions, and conversion guide
Population health has recently grown from a series of loosely connected critiques of twentieth-century public health and medicine into a theoretical framework with a corresponding field of research—population health science. Its approach is to promote the public’s health through improving everyday human life: afford-able nutritious food, clean air, safe places where children can play, living wages, etc. It recognizes that addressing contemporary health challenges such as the prevalence of type 2 diabetes will take much more than good hospitals and public health departments. Blending philosophy of science/medicine, public health ethics and history, this book offers a framework that explains, analyses and largely endorses the features that define this relatively new field. Presenting a philosophical perspective, Valles helps to clarify what these features are and why they matter, including: searching for health’s "upstream" causes in social life, embracing a professional commitment to studying and ameliorating the staggering health inequities in and between populations; and reforming scientific practices to foster humility and respect among the many scientists and non- scientists who must work collaboratively to promote health. Featuring illustrative case studies from around the globe at the end of all main chapters, this radical monograph is written to be accessible to all scholars and advanced students who have an interest in health—from public health students to professional philosophers.
Reductionism at the dawn of population health / Kristin Heitman -- Wrong answers : when simple interpretations create complex problems / David S. Fink, Katherine M. Keyes -- Complexity : the evolution towards 21st century science / Anton Palma, David W. Lounsbury -- Systems thinking in population health research and policy / Stephen Mooney -- Generation of systems maps: mapping complex systems of population health / Helen de Pinho -- Systems dynamics model / Eric Lofgren -- Agent-based modeling / Brandon Marshall -- Microsimulation / Sanjay Basu -- Social network analysis : the ubiquity of social networks and their importance for population health / Douglas A. Luke, Amar Dhand, Bobbi J. Carothers -- Machine learning / James H. Faghmous -- Systems science and the social determinants of population health / David S. Fink, Katherine M. Keyes, Magdalena Cerdá -- Systems approaches to understanding how the environment influences population health and population health interventions / Melissa Tracy -- Systems of behavior and population health / Mark Orr, Kathryn Ziemer, Daniel Chen -- Systems under your skin / Karina Standahl Olsen, Hege Bøvelstad, Eiliv Lund -- Frontiers in health modeling / Nathaniel Osgood -- Systems science and population health / Abdulrahman M. El-Sayed, Sandro Galea
Complex Systems and Computation in Public Health Sciences is the first comprehensive book in population health science that meaningfully integrates complex systems theory, methodology, modeling, computational simulation, and real-world applications while incorporating current population health perspectives.
This book explores social factors such as culture, mass media, political systems, and migration that influence public health while systematically considering how we may best study these factors and use our knowledge from this study to guide public health interventions. Throughout, contributors emphasize the potential of population strategies to influence traditional risk factors associated with health and disease. Each section ends with Galea’s integrative chapters, bringing the observations and conclusions from the chapters into clear, usable focus.
We rely on environmental health scientists to document the presence of chemicals where we live, work, and play and to provide an empirical basis for public policy. In the last decades of the 20th century, environmental health scientists began to shift their focus deep within the human body, and to the molecular level, in order to investigate gene-environment interactions. In Exposed Science, Sara Shostak analyzes the rise of gene-environment interaction in the environmental health sciences and examines its consequences for how we understand and seek to protect population health. Drawing on in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation, Shostak demonstrates that what we know – and what we don’t know – about the vulnerabilities of our bodies to environmental hazards is profoundly shaped by environmental health scientists’ efforts to address the structural vulnerabilities of their field. She then takes up the political effects of this research, both from the perspective of those who seek to establish genomic technologies as a new basis for environmental regulation, and from the perspective of environmental justice activists, who are concerned that that their efforts to redress the social, political, and economical inequalities that put people at risk of environmental exposure will be undermined by molecular explanations of environmental health and illness. Exposed Science thus offers critically important new ways of understanding and engaging with the emergence of gene-environment interaction as a focal concern of environmental health science, policy-making, and activism.
The ability to see deeply affects how human beings perceive and interpret the world around them. For most people, eyesight is part of everyday communication, social activities, educational and professional pursuits, the care of others, and the maintenance of personal health, independence, and mobility. Functioning eyes and vision system can reduce an adult's risk of chronic health conditions, death, falls and injuries, social isolation, depression, and other psychological problems. In children, properly maintained eye and vision health contributes to a child's social development, academic achievement, and better health across the lifespan. The public generally recognizes its reliance on sight and fears its loss, but emphasis on eye and vision health, in general, has not been integrated into daily life to the same extent as other health promotion activities, such as teeth brushing; hand washing; physical and mental exercise; and various injury prevention behaviors. A larger population health approach is needed to engage a wide range of stakeholders in coordinated efforts that can sustain the scope of behavior change. The shaping of socioeconomic environments can eventually lead to new social norms that promote eye and vision health. Making Eye Health a Population Health Imperative: Vision for Tomorrow proposes a new population-centered framework to guide action and coordination among various, and sometimes competing, stakeholders in pursuit of improved eye and vision health and health equity in the United States. Building on the momentum of previous public health efforts, this report also introduces a model for action that highlights different levels of prevention activities across a range of stakeholders and provides specific examples of how population health strategies can be translated into cohesive areas for action at federal, state, and local levels.
