An argument that health is optimal responsiveness and is often best treated at the system level. Medical education centers on the venerable “no-fault” concept of homeostasis, whereby local mechanisms impose constancy by correcting errors, and the brain serves mainly for emergencies. Yet, it turns out that most parameters are not constant; moreover, despite the importance of local mechanisms, the brain is definitely in charge. In this book, the eminent neuroscientist Peter Sterling describes a broader concept: allostasis (coined by Sterling and Joseph Eyer in the 1980s), whereby the brain anticipates needs and efficiently mobilizes supplies to prevent errors. Allostasis evolved early, Sterling explains, to optimize energy efficiency, relying heavily on brain circuits that deliver a brief reward for each positive surprise. Modern life so reduces the opportunities for surprise that we are driven to seek it in consumption: bigger burgers, more opioids, and innumerable activities that involve higher carbon emissions. The consequences include addiction, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and climate change. Sterling concludes that solutions must go beyond the merely technical to restore possibilities for daily small rewards and revivify the capacities for egalitarianism that were hard-wired into our nature. Sterling explains that allostasis offers what is not found in any medical textbook: principled definitions of health and disease: health as the capacity for adaptive variation and disease as shrinkage of that capacity. Sterling argues that since health is optimal responsiveness, many significant conditions are best treated at the system level.

This informative volume synthesizes the literatures on health economics, risk management, and health services into a concise guide to the financial and social basics of health insurance with an eye to its wide-scale upgrade. Its scope takes in concepts of health capital, strengths and limitations of insurance models, the effectiveness of coverage and services, and the roles of healthcare providers and government agencies in the equation. Coverage surveys the current state of group and public policies, most notably the effects of the Affordable Care Act on insurers and consumers and the current interest in universal coverage and single-payer plans. Throughout, the author provides systemic reasons to explain why today’s health insurance fails so many consumers, concluding with reality-based recommendations for making insurance more valuable to both today’s market and consumer well-being. Included among the topics: ·Defining health insurance and healthcare finance. ·Consuming and investing in health. ·The scope of health insurance and its constraints. ·Matching health insurance supply and demand. ·The role of government in health insurance. ·Ongoing challenges and the future of health insurance. Bringing a needed degree of objectivity to often highly subjective material, What Is Health Insurance (Good) For? is a call to reform to be read by health insurance researchers (including risk management insurance and health services research), professionals, practitioners, and policymakers.

This book combines a collection of essays by leading experts from several OECD countries with papers discussing the results of the OECD Ageing-Related Diseases study.

What the Hell is Behavioral Health? By: Don Hidalgo You might be familiar with the term behavioral health. It is invoked in federal and state legislation, in health insurance benefits, and by pharmaceutical companies. But it has no recognized or legal definition – leading to a mental health free-for-all with the only winner the pharmaceutical industry. What the Hell is Behavioral Health? is a call to arms for therapists to take back control of care from pharmaceuticals and non-mental health practitioners. Employee Assistance Programs were developed in the 1960s to provide support, mental health assistance, and addiction counseling for employees. Don Hidalgo was an early pioneer. From training to employees with learning disabilities to addiction counseling, Hidalgo always worked to find a solution to the client’s needs. Seeing firsthand how addiction destroys individuals, families, and communities, Hidalgo has always remained committed to providing the highest possible addiction counseling and support. His devotion to addiction treatment is unique in the counseling industry. Most doctoral and master degree programs have no specified addiction education and most physicians and psychiatrists are not required any medical school education on addiction. With 10% of Americans suffering from addiction, and deaths from the Opioid Epidemic only rising, the pharmaceutical industry and government dangerously refuse to provide adequate addiction care. While legislation is passed for medical marijuana, treatment for substance abuse is routinely cut from health care bills. Practical advice from counselors is frequently ignored in favor of specious medication. Millions of dollars – and millions of lives – are lost. Impassioned and articulate, What the Hell is Behavioral Health? shares effective advice for employees and counselors to create a healthy and productive work force.

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-ND licence. This book explores the concept of public trust in health systems. In the context of recent events, including public response to interventions to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccination uptake and the use of health data and digital health, this important book uses empirical evidence to address why public trust is vital to a well-functioning health system. In doing so, it provides a comprehensive contemporary explanation of public trust, how it affects health systems and how it can be nurtured and maintained as an integral component of health system governance.

Using a straightforward systems approach, Turnock’s Public Health: What It Is and How It Works explores the inner workings of the complex, modern U.S. public health system—what it is, what it does, how it works, and why it is important. Divided into two parts, Part I of the text focuses on the key elements of public health practice in 21st Century America, while Part II offers case studies designed to emphasize what public health is and how it works in practice. Collectively, this text gives students an understanding of the key concepts underlying public health as a system and social enterprise while enabling them to practice their knowledge with real-life public health problems, programs, and initiatives. The Seventh Edition introduces the concept of “Public Health 3.0”, with its new set of recommendations for updated public health practice in the 21st century and forms a unifying thread through the first six chapters of the book. A new appendix addresses COVID-19.

The idea that we have an unlimited moral imperative to pursue medical research is deeply rooted in American society and medicine. In this provocative work, Daniel Callahan exposes the ways in which such a seemingly high and humane ideal can be corrupted and distorted into a harmful practice. Medical research, with its power to attract money and political support, and its promise of cures for a wide range of medical burdens, has good and bad sides—which are often indistinguishable. In What Price Better Health?, Callahan teases out the distinctions and differences, revealing the difficulties that result when the research imperative is suffused with excessive zeal, adulterated by the profit motive, or used to justify cutting moral corners. Exploring the National Institutes of Health's annual budget, the inflated estimates of health care cost savings that result from research, the high prices charged by drug companies, the use and misuse of human subjects for medical testing, and the controversies surrounding human cloning and stem cell research, Callahan clarifies the fine line between doing good and doing harm in the name of medical progress. His work shows that medical research must be understood in light of other social and economic needs and how even the research imperative, dedicated to the highest human good, has its limits.

Oral health disparities are profound worldwide, and they affect the quality of life of individuals of all age groups. Disparities in oral health are seen in racial and ethnic minorities, at different socioeconomic levels and due to differences in environment and cultural factors. Several determinants of oral health have been identified at the population, community, family and individual levels. These determinants represent a complex interplay of the social, biological, cultural and economic factors that in turn affect the oral health behaviors, environmental exposures, health care utilization. To date, biological factors related to oral diseases have received much attention in oral health research; whilst social and cultural determinants have just started to receive recognition for their role in oral disease development and progression. This research highlights that interventions designed to reduce disparities should adopt a multi-level approach in order to identify the modifiable mechanisms and target all determinants of oral health disparities. In this Research Topic, we will focus on the role of social, environmental and cultural factors in the development and progression of oral diseases, their role in oral health disparities and interventions focusing on these factors to improve oral health and reduce disparities.

John Coggon analyses important ethical, legal and political claims related to public health and health regulation.

Using a straightforward systems approach, Public Health: What It Is and How It Works explores the inner workings of the complex, modern U.S. public health system--what it is, what it does, how it works, and why it is important. It covers the origins and development of the modern public health system; the relationship of public health to the overall health system; how the system is organized at the federal, state, and local levels; its core functions and how well these are currently being addressed; evidence-based practice and an approach to program planning and evaluation for public health interventions; public health activities such as epidemiological investigation, biomedical research, environmental assessment, policy development, and more. Transition to the New Edition! Click here to access our transition guide--and make changing your course materials from the third edition to the fourth edition as easy as possible! The Fourth Edition is a thorough revision that includes: The latest developments with public health agency accreditation, public health worker credentialing, workforce development, as well as future challenges in the field. Coverage of the new core competencies for the MPH degree recently established by the Association of Schools of Pubic Health. A new series of charts describing current health status and trends related to the content of each chapter. New Learning Objectives in each chapter. New Public Health Spotlights in chapters 1-8 which provide a focused examination of topics related to the learning objectives for that chapter. A complete package of instructor support material for both online and traditional classroom environments including course modules, sample syllabus, course resources, competency map, and detailed chapter-by-chapter PowerPoint slides.