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.
This comprehensive and detailed survey of the first six centuries of Indian Buddhism sums up the results of a lifetime of research and reflection by one of Japan's most renowned scholars of Buddhism.
A Journey from Consciousness to Matter In Vedic philosophy, creation is modeled as the creative activity of consciousness. Just as an artist creates a painting by first thinking about it and then embedding his ideas into matter, so the creator of the universe creates the world of objects by expressing meanings in His consciousness into undifferentiated matter. Creation Has Six Causes Creation in the Vedic view proceeds from the unconscious, to conscious experience, to material objects. Each of these three features has a subjective and objective aspect, thereby creating the six causes for which the author dedicates a chapter, as follows: The Personal Cause of Creation explores the properties of consciousness, its quest for meaning and self-knowledge and how that quest forms the basis for the creation of the universe. The Efficient Cause of Creation describes the mechanism by which the quest for meaning gradually becomes thoughts, desires, judgments, plans and actions, thereby creating various experiences. The Instrumental Cause of Creation discusses the Vedic view on the senses, mind, intelligence and ego as the instruments that experience meanings, and embed meanings into matter. The Formal Cause of Creation describes the nature of meanings and how these meanings are created as subtle information and then embedded into space-time to create differentiated objects. The Systemic Cause of Creation explains how information in the mind is transformed into energy which is then represented into matter as sound vibrations denoting meanings. The Material Cause of Creation describes how information is encoded as vibrations in space-time, and how modifications of these vibrations create other observable physical properties. The six causes are prefaced by a chapter discussing basic difficulties in knowing the past, the problem of meaning, how this changes our outlook about space and time, and how the solution requires consciousness to create the fundamental distinctions in terms of which everything is known. In the process, the book touches upon issues of intelligent design, creationism, the creation vs evolution debate and the unique Vedic view on it. The last two chapters treat the nature of God and His power, the nature of free will and how it interacts with matter, which creates karma and leads to repeated births and deaths (also known as reincarnation). How You Will Benefit from Six Causes Presented in lay person's language, and written for those who don't have any background in Vedic philosophy, Six Causes will allow you to assimilate a profound understanding of matter, conscious experience, the unconscious, God, philosophy of religion, morality, reincarnation, karma and time. In the process, you will also see many common misconceptions about Vedic philosophy such as impersonalism, polytheism and fatalism overturned. How Is This Book Different? Currently, the majority of the New Age books dealing in Vedic philosophy or Hinduism start from an impersonal interpretation of the Vedic texts. Not only does this negate the personal character of the soul and God but also fails to authentically describe the Vedic view of matter and the mind. While these books do point out deficiencies in modern materialism, they don't offer a concrete alternative that can be scientifically meaningful.There is no clear explanation of how conscious activity leads to karma and how consciousness itself is covered by the unconscious history of past experiences. This prevents many people from fully grasping the philosophical depth of the Vedas. Six Causes: The Vedic Theory of Creation tries to fill that gap.
The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.
Explains the causes of war through a sustained combination of theoretical insights and detailed case studies. This work through the examples of World War I, World War II in the Pacific, the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, and others, uncovers the complex multi-level processes by which disputes between countries evolve into bloody conflicts.
The Pocket Book is for use by doctors nurses and other health workers who are responsible for the care of young children at the first level referral hospitals. This second edition is based on evidence from several WHO updated and published clinical guidelines. It is for use in both inpatient and outpatient care in small hospitals with basic laboratory facilities and essential medicines. In some settings these guidelines can be used in any facilities where sick children are admitted for inpatient care. The Pocket Book is one of a series of documents and tools that support the Integrated Managem.
This report considers the biological and behavioral mechanisms that may underlie the pathogenicity of tobacco smoke. Many Surgeon General's reports have considered research findings on mechanisms in assessing the biological plausibility of associations observed in epidemiologic studies. Mechanisms of disease are important because they may provide plausibility, which is one of the guideline criteria for assessing evidence on causation. This report specifically reviews the evidence on the potential mechanisms by which smoking causes diseases and considers whether a mechanism is likely to be operative in the production of human disease by tobacco smoke. This evidence is relevant to understanding how smoking causes disease, to identifying those who may be particularly susceptible, and to assessing the potential risks of tobacco products.
The Meta-Analytic Organization: Introducing Statistico-Organizational Theory develops new organizational theory based upon ideas from statistics and methodology. There have been previous organizational theories based on academic disciplines such as biology, economics, and sociology. Statistico-organizational theory uniquely constructs a new organizational theory derived from ideas in statistics and psychometrics. The core idea is that errors known to occur in social science research must also occur when managers look at their data and seek to make inferences about cause and effect. Statistico-organizational theory uses methodological principles to predict when errors will occur and how great they will be. The book offers new theoretical propositions about organizational strategy and structure, human resource management, international business and franchising.
The spiritual training of a Buddhist comprises the Three Learning: precepts, meditation, and wisdom. Observance of precepts is the foundation of one's spiritual journey to Buddhahood. Classified into three clusters-restraining precepts, precepts for doing good dharmas, and precepts for benefiting sentient beings-Bodhisattva precepts are called the three clusters of pure precepts.This book, Rulu's third, presents seven s'tras in English, all translated from texts in the Chinese Buddhist Canon. Five of these seven English translations have never before been published in book form. S'tras 1 and 2 cover the ten good karmas; S'tra 3 teaches repentance of sins; S'tra 4 expounds the Mah'y'na Vinaya; S'tras 5–7 each contain time-honored Bodhisattva precepts. S'tra 6 is the well-known Brahma Net S'tra; S'tra 7, S'tra of the Up'saka Precepts, also covers the six p'ramit's in detail. Buddhist terms are explained in the glossary.The translator's introduction presents sets of Buddhist precepts and describes the arrival of the H'nay'na Vinaya in China. It explains the development of the Vinaya School, a Mah'y'na school originated in China, and summarizes its tenets. It compares voice-hearer precepts with Bodhisattva precepts, and discusses five texts of the latter. It also touches on selecting those Bodhisattva precepts that suit our modern times. Such precepts will be fewer in number but complete in spirit. Buddhist or non-Buddhist, those who seek to benefit themselves and others need to learn and observe such Bodhisattva precepts.
