Showing papers on "International health published in 1990"

The Handbook of Health Behavior Change

Abstract: Demands of managed care and wellness programs require that practitioners and researchers find effective models for behavior change. This Handbook has been updated to direct both care providers and policy makers to the most promising prevention and wellness therapies. This third edition has been extensively revised, updated, and expanded, with new chapters added and outdated chapters omitted. Together the editors and an array of expert contributors have made an excellent and necessary reference even better.

Mass Communication and Public Health: Complexities and Conflicts

Abstract: The media influence how we live--and die. Tobacco can kill us, yet we continue to smoke. Drinking and driving is a lethal combination, yet we continue to drive when inebriated. Poor diet slowly destroys us, yet we continue to eat unhealthily. Evolving from a national conference, Mass Communication and Public Health examines why public information campaigns have achieved limited success and what can be done to improve their effectiveness. This resource is part of the Public Health Advocacy Website Collection.

The Economics of Health Care

Abstract: Economics is centrally concerned about the use of scarce resources, and resources of many kinds are, almost by definition, particularly scarce in developing countries. Average levels of living are low and there is a limited pool of educated and trained manpower. Morever, a lower proportion of such a nation’s resources can be mobilized through taxation for communal purposes not only because a high proportion of the population is poor but also because of the administrative difficulties of collecting taxes with a low proportion of the population in regular salaried employment.

Health and health care in the Third World

Abstract: Part 1 Health, development and health care: definitions of health health and development trends in the philosophy and foci of health provision integrated actions the impact of selected development projects and strategies on the health of groups and areas major characteristics of health care in the Third World some specific features significance of these features for health care in the Third World intersectoral action for health - integrated components? intersectoral action. Part 2 Epidemiological transition - the range of Third World experience: health indicators in the Third World infectious and non-infectious ailments epidemiological transition and demographic transition two instances of epidemiological change different epidemiological experiences within two different countries? epidemiological change - international patterns the significance of epidemiological and demographic transition for the Third World how many worlds for health?. Part 3 What is health care in the Third World?: the nature of modern facilities traditional medicine social attitudes to traditional medicine traditional and modern medicine - Malaysia traditional medicine in China urban and rural differences in traditional medicine. Part 4 Health care in Third World countries - aspects of distribution and accessibility: some issues related to health care the health care hierarchy geographical variations in the distribution of health facilities some differences involved in extending access to health care reasons for differential accessibility and urban bias in the distribution of health care optimizing accessibility - a Third World dilemma?. Part 5 Primary health care: primary health care community participation doubts about PHC selective PHC vertical programmes in PHC? community health workers and PHC the use of CHWs - some examples and problems hospitals and urban PHC. Part 6 Using health services modelling the use of health services inappropriate utilization health beliefs - utilization for varying conditions variables influencing utilization utilization and distance use of traditional medicine retrospect. Part 7 Health care - special groups and programmes - maternal and child health and related programmes family planning services and provision for the elderly pharmaceuticals - use, abuse and dumping. Part 8 Health care - the end of the century and beyond: some foci of "health for all" campaigns health education - a way forward? access to clean water aid and international health agencies the nature and role of aid in the health sector other changing philosophies.

Health promotion as a public health strategy for the 1990s.

Abstract: One image of health promotion views lean and lonely people grimly pursuing health-directed behavior to reduce their risks of premature death, disease, and even aging. Important behavior as such goal-oriented activity may be for that small minority of individuals, and much as public health can point with pride to its development in recent years, it is but a small piece of the more pervasive and problematic web of health-related behavior of individuals, as well as whole families, groups, communities, and organizations. This more pervasive behavior has to do with patterns and conditions of living, eating, playing , working, and just plain loafing, most of which lie outside the realm of the health sector and are not consciously health directed. Here lies the role of health promotion as a public health strategy for the 1990s. HEALTH PROMOTION'S RECENT DEVELOPMENT Health education in public health and medical care has adhered, as a matter of professional ethics and principles of learning, to approaches that involved people actively in the process of setting their own goals and priorities for behavior related to health (34, 35). This insistence on participation and voluntary change in behavior has achieved notable success with conscious health-directed behavior. Health education can be made to work effectively and humanely where people are clearly oriented to solve a discrete and IThis review is adapted from Chapter I of a forthcoming book, Health Promotion Planning:

Communication and health : systems and applications

Abstract: This volume examines this rapidly growing and changing field by applying a unified framework that integrates both interpersonal and mass communication investigations into theoretical and applied issues. Using a systems perspective as the organizational framework, relevant issues in the communication of health care, ranging from micro to macro levels, are discussed. The contributors recognize communication as a major factor affecting health today and therefore go beyond examinations of health communication as simply a dissemination of information regarding diseases, diagnoses, and treatments to show it as a much larger and more complex field with applications to all levels and forms of communication. Communication and Health has as its three main objecties: * providing a comprehensive, detailed, and up to-date picture of health communication * applying an integrated, logical structure to the field * making a clear, strong statement regarding the state of health communication and examining its future prospects The contributors address such issues as provider-patient communication, health care teams, health care organizations, public health campaigns, and health education, and then discuss the factors that affect the processing of health information. Also included are examinations of changes in communication use within interpersonal, small group, and organizational health care contexts as well as the use of mass media and other sources for public health campaigns and for raising public awareness of health issues on a day-to-day basis. Communication and Health fills a void in current literature on this field by serving as both a reference for professionals and researchers and as a textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate level students in a multitude of courses.

The Canadian health care system. A Canadian physician's perspective.

Abstract: Canada is perceived to have one of the best health care systems in the developed world, publicly funded and providing universal coverage. It has avoided the direct governmental controls of Britain'...

Planning and Implementing Health Promotion in the Workplace: A Case Study of the Du Pont Company Experience

Abstract: This case study describes the needs assessment, design, implementation, and preliminary evaluation of a comprehensive workplace health promotion program. The company had 110,000 U.S. employees at more than 100 locations engaged in a variety of manufacturing, research, sales, and support occupations in 1980. The PRECEDE framework was used to focus program planning and evaluation on key areas of health knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. The needs assessment included use of company morbidity and mortality data, a survey of medical and human resources staff, and a survey of employees, spouses, and pensioners. An in-house network of lay committees, site medical personnel, and corporate health education, nutrition and fitness specialists was used to staff critical program functions. Interventions included: public health approaches to program kick-off and health risk assessment; group and self-directed lifestyle change activities; recognition and awards; and workplace climate changes such as smoking policies that favor nonsmokers. One pilot location experienced a 47.5% decline in hourly employee absenteeism over six years versus a 12.5% decline in the total Du Pont hourly workforce. A number of lessons are discussed on how to improve the planning, implementation, institutionalization, and evaluation of health promotion programs in large industrial companies. Four areas where future research and practice should be focused include: reaching spouses, sales personnel, shiftworkers, and employees at small sites; balancing what is popular with what reduces risks over the long-term; documenting program impacts when research resources are scarce; and integrating health promotion programs with workplace medical, safety, employee assistance and benefits programs.

The poor, the rich, and the insecure elderly caught in between.

Abstract: Although the elderly are as well or perhaps better off on average than younger groups, measures of the elderly's economic well-being have to gauge the security of their income and assets relative to the financial and health problems they may face. These measures include the adequacy of older Americans' health insurance vis-a-vis their health status, and the sufficiency of their resources to meet possible contingencies, such as severe inflation and costs of long-term care. By applying such measures to the 1984 Survey of Income and Program Participation, 4.5 million elderly may be categorized as economically insecure. Action is needed to ease the insecurity current public and private insurance policy implicitly imposes on this group, which constitutes 20 percent of the elderly population.

Financing health services in Africa : an assessment of alternative approaches

Abstract: This paper outlines a strategy for financing health services in sub-Saharan Africa. The individual components of the strategy are as follows: general tax revenues, international finance, a system of user charges, community finance, health insurance, and contributions from nongovernmental organizations, including the private sector. The author states that financial positions of public health care systems in sub-Saharan Africa would be greatly enhanced if governments in the region were to adopt policies that would use each of the above sources of finance. Since a strong financial base is a prerequisite for an effective health care system, such policies would considerably improve the health status of the population. It is important that for each country different policies be pursued at various levels of society, and in different sectors of the economy.

The AIDS bureaucracy

Abstract: AIDS is unquestionably the most serious threat to public health in this century--yet how effective has the United States been in coping with this deadly disease? This sobering analysis of the first five years of the AIDS epidemic reveals the failure of traditional approaches in recognizing and managing this health emergency; it is an extremely unsettling probe into what makes the nation ill equipped to handle a crisis of the magnitude of the one that now confronts us. Sandra Panem pays particular attention to the Public Health Service, within which the vast majority of biomedical research and public health services are organized, including the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health. We learn in dismaying detail how shortcomings in communication within and among the many layers of the health establishment delayed management of the crisis. She also investigates other problems that surface during a health emergency, involving issues such as federal budgeting, partisan politics, bureaucratic bungles, educating the public, the complications of policymaking, and the vexing role of the press. Panem makes specific recommendations for a centrally coordinated federal response to health emergencies, including the creation of a national health emergency plan.

Field epidemiology training programs. New international health resources.

Abstract: EPIDEMIOLOGY, the basic science of preventive medicine, is the scientific process of assembling facts about health problems and the groups in which these health problems occur so that inferences can be made that lead to their control and prevention. Epidemiologic techniques, properly applied, are powerful tools to improve the health of nations. Epidemiologic methods can measure the health status of populations, measure the prevalence of risk factors within populations, identify new disease threats within populations and from one population to another (especially threats from emerging organisms), determine and quantify the utilization of health services and health resources, and determine the impact of health-promoting and disease-preventing interventions. By communicating properly analyzed and interpreted epidemiologic information in a timely manner to policymakers and planners, relevant health policies can be formulated, implemented, and monitored. THE ROLE OF EPIDEMIOLOGY IN NATIONAL HEALTH PROGRAMS The well-known adage that "an ounce of prevention is worth a

Activists and Advocates: Toronto's Health Department 1883-1983

Abstract: For more than a century, Toronto's Health Department has served as a model of evolving municipal public health services in Canada and beyond. From horse manure to hippies and small pox to AIDS, the Department's staff have established and maintained standards of environmental cleanliness and communicable disease control procedures that have made the city a healthy place to live. This centennial history anlyzes the complex interaction of politics, patronage and professional aspirations which determine the success or failure of specific policies and programs. As such, it fills a long neglected gap in our understanding of the development of local health services. Using Toronto's changing circumstances as a backdrop, the book details the evolution of the international public health movement through its various phases culminating in the modern emphasis on health promotion and health advocacy. By so doing, it demonstrates the significant contribution of preventive medicine and public health activities to Canadian life

Child health policy in the U.S.: the paradox of consensus.

Abstract: The U.S. spends more of its total GNP on health services than any other nation, yet it has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the industrialized world. Young American children are immunized at rates that are one-half those of Western Europe, Canada, and Israel. In the mid-1980s, a consensus among policymakers on the need for federal action to improve child health services resulted in the expansion of Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women and young children and the separation of Medicaid eligibility from eligibility for AFDC. The current phase of child health policymaking includes discussion of much broader proposals for changes in health care financing and innovation in health care delivery. This examination of child health policy begins by reviewing the politics of maternal and child health services from the early twentieth century to the Reagan administration, including the role of feminist movements, the development of pediatrics, and the expansion of federal involvement during the 1960s. Next, the politics of Medicaid expansion as a strategy for addressing child health issues are discussed. Current critiques of child health services in the U.S. are examined, along with proposals to restructure health care financing and delivery. Central to the politics of child health policy during the 1980s and into the 1990s is the way in which child health has been defined. Infant mortality and childhood illness are presented as preventable problems. Investment in young children is discussed as a prudent as well as a compassionate policy, one which will reduce future health care costs and enhance our position in the international economy. Unlike other "disadvantaged groups," children are universally viewed as innocent and deserving of societal support. Framing child health issues in these terms helped to produce consensus on the expansion of Medicaid eligibility. Yet the issues beyond the expansion of Medicaid eligibility involve the restructuring of health care financing and delivery, and, on these issues, conflict is far more likely than consensus.

An assessment of population, health and education policies in the Philippines, 1986-1988

Abstract: This paper reviews the major policy initiatives of the Aquino Administration in the area of populating, health and education. In each of these areas, the issues that the Aquino Administration is likely to confront are briefly described. An assessment of the major policy responses is then provided.

Health care in America : the political economy of hospitals and health insurance

Abstract: Feel lonely? What about reading books? Book is one of the greatest friends to accompany while in your lonely time. When you have no friends and activities somewhere and sometimes, reading book can be a great choice. This is not only for spending the time, it will increase the knowledge. Of course the b=benefits to take will relate to what kind of book that you are reading. And now, we will concern you to try reading health care in america the political economy of hospitals and health insurance as one of the reading material to finish quickly.