This book brings together world-class figures to provide an indispensable, comprehensive resource book on social science, health and medicine.

Hypertension is another name for high blood pressure. It can lead to severe complications and increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, and death. Blood pressure is the force exerted by the blood against the walls of the blood vessels. Comprising more than 1000 pages, this book is a complete guide to the diagnosis and management of hypertension. Divided into 19 sections, the text begins with an introduction to hypertension, its causes, risk factors, and how it presents in different sectors of the population. The next chapters discuss diagnostic methods and echocardiography. The following sections cover hypertension associated with other disorders including heart failure, stroke, renovascular diseases, metabolic syndrome, and many more. Numerous clinical management strategies are discussed in depth, as well as cardio-oncology, nutrition, and ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation – a procedure that uses a machine to take over the work of the lungs and sometimes, the heart). A complete section is dedicated to paediatric cardiology and hypertension. With an internationally recognised editor and author team, the comprehensive text is highly illustrated with clinical photographs, diagrams and tables. The book also includes full online access. Key points Comprehensive guide to diagnosis and management of hypertension comprising over 1000 pages Internationally recognised editor and author team Highly illustrated with clinical photographs, diagrams and tables Includes full online access to the book

The pace of globalization has significantly accelerated since the end of the Cold War Era in 1989. These changes profoundly affected health care systems worldwide. Health policy makers increasingly started facing new harsh challenges in their uneasy task to provide universal health coverage and decent equity of access to medical services. Among the most prominent demand-side issues are extended longevity joined with population aging, rise of non-communicable diseases, and growing patient expectations. Supply-side causes are gains in societal welfare and living standards, technological innovation in medicine and continuing rapid urbanization in developing world regions. Successful insurance-based risk sharing agreements made drug dispensing and medical service provision cheap or virtually free at the point of consumption in most OECD and many middle-income countries. Coupled with massive build-up of workforce capacities and strengthening of primary care and hospital networks, all these factors contributed to the “supplier induced demand” phenomenon. There is straightforward historical evidence of long-term growth in pharmaceutical and overall health spending both in absolute and GDP% terms worldwide. The accumulated constraints deriving from skyrocketing costs of care were felt in many areas of clinical medicine even among the richest societies. Cardinal examples of expensive and hardly affordable therapeutic areas are orphan drugs indicated to treat rare diseases and targeted biologicals used in autoimmune disorders and cancer. Last but not least, is troubled and frequently denied access to even essential generic pharmaceuticals still taking place in many nations. This appears to be particularly the case among the world's poor and under-served citizens residing in rural and suburban areas of low- and middle-income countries. To a large extent, these difficulties are worsened by lack of evidence-based resource allocation strategies and less sustainable financing strategies.