Health professionals for a new century: transforming education to strengthen health systems in an interdependent world

Identifying interesting relationships between pairs of variables in large data sets is increasingly important. Here, we present a measure of dependence for two-variable relationships: the maximal information coefficient (MIC). MIC captures a wide range of associations both functional and not, and for functional relationships provides a score that roughly equals the coefficient of determination (R2) of the data relative to the regression function. MIC belongs to a larger class of maximal information-based nonparametric exploration (MINE) statistics for identifying and classifying relationships. We apply MIC and MINE to data sets in global health, gene expression, major-league baseball, and the human gut microbiota and identify known and novel relationships.

/pdf/detecting-novel-associations-in-large-data-sets-2kpm4m2l1s.pdf

Detecting Novel Associations in Large Data Sets

http://gruberpeplab.com/3131/Kreibig_2010.pdf

Autonomic nervous system activity in emotion: A review

The emergence of global history has been one of the more notable features of academic history over the past three decades. Although historians of disease were among the pioneers of one of its earlier incarnations—world history—the recent “global turn” has made relatively little impact on histories of health, disease, and medicine. Most continue to be framed by familiar entities such as the colony or nation-state or are confined to particular medical “traditions.” This article aims to show what can be gained from taking a broader perspective. Its purpose is not to replace other ways of seeing or to write a new “grand narrative” but to show how transnational and transimperial approaches are vital to understanding some of the key issues with which historians of health, disease, and medicine are concerned. Moving on from an analysis of earlier periods of integration, the article offers some reflections on our own era of globalization and on the emerging field of global health.

/pdf/a-global-perspective-reframing-the-history-of-health-24gjsxnbh1.pdf

A Global Perspective: Reframing the History of Health, Medicine, and Disease.

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(09)60332-9.pdf

Towards a common definition of global health

Henry E. Sigerist, an internationally renowned medical historian, played a surprisingly important and visible role in American medical politics in the 1930s and 1940s. Born in Paris of Swiss parents, he was professor in Leipzig, Germany, before coming to the United States in 1932 as professor of the history of medicine at Johns Hopkins University. Once in America. Sigerist became deeply involved in medical politics and the campaign for national health insurance. He argued that individualized medical practice was outdated and should gradually be superseded by state-run and state-financed health services. National health insurance was but one step in this historical progression. Sigerist thus lent the weight of history itself to the cause of medical care reform. The charming and erudite Sigerist was welcomed by the leaders of academic medicine in America. Soon, he emerged as a spokesman of the left wing of the medical profession, an effective and popular speaker and an impassioned advocate of socialized medicine. This paper traces Sigerist's political ideas and activities, and his contributions toward medical care reform in the United States.

The pleasures and perils of prophetic advocacy: Henry E. Sigerist and the politics of medical reform.

An obituary for American writer and social justice pioneer Samuel Hopkins Adams is presented.

Samuel Hopkins Adams (1871–1958): Journalist and Muckraker

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue including "The Relationship of Fetal and Infant Mortality to Residential Segregation" by Alfred Yankauer, "The Social Justice Agenda” by Mary E. Northridge, and "Some Urgent Social Claims” by Lavinia L. Dock.

The relevance of public health history.

TOOTH DECAY IN EUROPE and America is believed to have increased dramatically during the 19th century as a result of the growing general availability of refined flour and sugar in industrially processed foods. By the end of the century, surveys showed that between 90% and 95% of all children had untreated decaying teeth.1 Most children saw a dentist—if at all—only for emergency extractions. In 1910, local dentists examined 447 schoolchildren in Elmira, NY, and reported that only 22 of the children had teeth “in perfect condition.”2 The other children collectively had 2063 cavities and 617 “teeth and roots needing extraction.” Similar results were being reported from other towns and cities.

Between 1910 and 1916, philanthropists built and endowed the first free and reduced-fee clinics for children and established the first schools for dental hygienists in Rochester, NY, Bridgeport, Conn, and Boston, Mass. By the 1920s, almost all American cities had free or reduced-fee clinics, and by 1950, such clinics were providing almost half of all oral health services delivered to children. Members of local dental associations staffed some clinics on a volunteer basis together with young dental school graduates seeking clinical experience. During the Great Depression, federal funds helped local and state governments to hire unemployed dentists.

The first dental hygienists entered the schools to clean children’s teeth and teach them how to use toothbrushes.3 Some cities provided each child with a free toothbrush and tooth powder, while others sold them at 2 or 3 cents each. As in England, where toothbrushes were provided to all servicemen during World War I, this helped establish and extend the use of the toothbrush in working-class families.4 American schools also adopted the “toothbrush clubs” and “toothbrush drills” begun in England.5 This image, from a New York school, shows children demonstrating their newly acquired skills of toothbrushing.

https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/pdfplus/10.2105/AJPH.94.5.721

Elizabeth Fee

Papers

The pleasures and perils of prophetic advocacy: Henry E. Sigerist and the politics of medical reform.

Samuel Hopkins Adams (1871–1958): Journalist and Muckraker

The relevance of public health history.

Popularizing the Toothbrush

Signing the US Medicare Act: a long political struggle