The anthrax incidents following the 9/11 terrorist attacks put the spotlight on the nation's public health agencies, placing it under an unprecedented scrutiny that added new dimensions to the complex issues considered in this report. The Future of the Public's Health in the 21st Century reaffirms the vision of Healthy People 2010, and outlines a systems approach to assuring the nation's health in practice, research, and policy. This approach focuses on joining the unique resources and perspectives of diverse sectors and entities and challenges these groups to work in a concerted, strategic way to promote and protect the public's health. Focusing on diverse partnerships as the framework for public health, the book discusses: The need for a shift from an individual to a population-based approach in practice, research, policy, and community engagement. The status of the governmental public health infrastructure and what needs to be improved, including its interface with the health care delivery system. The roles nongovernment actors, such as academia, business, local communities and the media can play in creating a healthy nation. Providing an accessible analysis, this book will be important to public health policy-makers and practitioners, business and community leaders, health advocates, educators and journalists.

"The Nation has lost sight of its public health goals and has allowed the system of public health to fall into 'disarray'," from The Future of Public Health. This startling book contains proposals for ensuring that public health service programs are efficient and effective enough to deal not only with the topics of today, but also with those of tomorrow. In addition, the authors make recommendations for core functions in public health assessment, policy development, and service assurances, and identify the level of government--federal, state, and local--at which these functions would best be handled.

The future place of medicines in health care is both exciting and uncertain. With an aging population, an increasing number of chronic sick, a growing range of treatment options and a developing European market, the one certainty is that medication patterns will change radically over the next 15 years or so. How the future might look, in terms of quality, volume and cost of pharmacotherapy, is the subject of this report. Four scenarios for the future are set out, all of which take account of already visible trends. Sobriety in sufficiency envisages rational and restrained consumption patterns. Risk of avoidance is dominated by fears of iatrogenic harm and hence minimal drug use. The central feature of Technology on demand, in contrast, is confidence in technological progress. Free market unfettered, finally, is marked by a Europe without frontiers and minimal state intervention. The reader is encouraged to reflect without preconceptions on the future of medicines in health care. No ready-made answers are offered; rather, a wealth of information and analysis is provided which serves to underpin decision making and policy development, not just by central government but also by every institution concerned with the role of medicines in health care.

For most clinicians, the science and evidence for many integrative therapies is largely unknown or considered suspect. Most physicians don't have time to learn integrative approaches and aren't sure what to recommend or which approaches have merit or improved outcomes. In Integrative Preventive Medicine, clinicians have easy access to the best practices in integrative medicine and expectations for outcomes. The current state of the science is also presented. Authors are leaders in their fields, with decades of expertise and leadership in their fields.

World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolu­tion, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, from supercomputers, drones and virtual assistants to 3D printing, DNA sequencing, smart thermostats, wear­able sensors and microchips smaller than a grain of sand. But this is just the beginning: nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair and the first transplant of a 3D printed liver are already in development. Imagine “smart factories” in which global systems of manu­facturing are coordinated virtually, or implantable mobile phones made of biosynthetic materials. The fourth industrial revolution, says Schwab, is more significant, and its ramifications more profound, than in any prior period of human history. He outlines the key technologies driving this revolution and discusses the major impacts expected on government, business, civil society and individu­als. Schwab also offers bold ideas on how to harness these changes and shape a better future—one in which technology empowers people rather than replaces them; progress serves society rather than disrupts it; and in which innovators respect moral and ethical boundaries rather than cross them. We all have the opportunity to contribute to developing new frame­works that advance progress.