Fully revised and updated for the third edition, the Oxford Handbook of Public Health Practice remains the first resort for all those working in this broad field. Structured to assist with practical tasks, translating evidence into policy, and providing concise summaries and real-world issues from across the globe, this literally provides a world of experience at your fingertips. Easy-to-use, concise and practical, it is structured into seven parts that focus on the vital areas of assessment, data and information, direct action, policy, health-care systems, personal effectiveness and organisational development. Reflecting recent advances, the most promising developments in practical public health are presented, as well as maintaining essential summaries of core disciplines. This handbook is designed to assist students and practitioners around the world, for improved management of disasters, epidemics, health behaviour, acute and chronic disease prevention, community and government action, environmental health, vulnerable populations, and more.

This is a practical public health book - written by public health practitioners for public health practitioners. It introduces learning practitioners to the early phases of approaching a public health issue, details why an issue is important and exactly how it can be analysed and addressed.It deals not only with the technical issues, but crucially with how those technical issues can be implemented in order to improve the health of the population directly, or via one of many important causal pathways (quality of health care design and delivery). It is written by experienced,internationally known practitioners of public health.

Natural disasters and cholera outbreaks. Ebola, SARS, and concerns over pandemic flu. HIV and AIDS. E. coli outbreaks from contaminated produce and fast foods. Threats of bioterrorism. Contamination of compounded drugs. Vaccination refusals and outbreaks of preventable diseases. These are just some of the headlines from the last 30-plus years highlighting the essential roles and responsibilities of public health, all of which come with ethical issues and the responsibilities they create. Public health has achieved extraordinary successes. And yet these successes also bring with them ethical tension. Not all public health successes are equally distributed in the population; extraordinary health disparities between rich and poor still exist. The most successful public health programs sometimes rely on policies that, while improving public health conditions, also limit individual rights. Public health practitioners and policymakers face these and other questions of ethics routinely in their work, and they must navigate their sometimes competing responsibilities to the health of the public with other important societal values such as privacy, autonomy, and prevailing cultural norms. This Oxford Handbook provides a sweeping and comprehensive review of the current state of public health ethics, addressing these and numerous other questions. Taking account of the wide range of topics under the umbrella of public health and the ethical issues raised by them, this volume is organized into fifteen sections. It begins with two sections that discuss the conceptual foundations, ethical tensions, and ethical frameworks of and for public health and how public health does its work. The thirteen sections that follow examine the application of public health ethics considerations and approaches across a broad range of public health topics. While chapters are organized into topical sections, each chapter is designed to serve as a standalone contribution. The book includes 73 chapters covering many topics from varying perspectives, a recognition of the diversity of the issues that define public health ethics in the U.S. and globally. This Handbook is an authoritative and indispensable guide to the state of public health ethics today.

This is part of a ten volume set of reference books offering authoritative and engaging critical overviews of the state of political science. This work explores the business end of politics, where theory meets practice in the pursuit of public good.

Fully revised and updated for the fourth edition, the award-winning Oxford Handbook of Public Health Practice remains the first resort for practitioners in the field. Structured into practical sections addressed towards professional competencies and translating evidence into policy, this Handbook provides concise summaries and covers real issues from across the globe, providing a world of experience at your fingertips. Easy-to-use, concise, and practical, this Handbook is divided into seven parts that focus on the vital areas of this broad discipline. Reflecting recent advances, the most promising developments in the practice of public health are presented, along with essential summaries of the core disciplines. Specific sections are devoted to the development of professional competencies including negotiation, communicating risk to the public, community action, and translating evidence into policy. Written by an international team of experts, and considering both social and scientific advances since the previous edition, this Handbook will assist students, trainees and practitioners around the world with its enriched information on the management of disasters, epidemics, health behaviour, acute and chronic disease prevention, community and government action, environmental heath, vulnerable populations, and more.

Health Sciences & Professions

Improving the health of the population requires a public health perspective. We have written this book to demonstrate its nature. Improving the population’s health is the occupational raison d'etre of public health professionals. However, because the population’s health is affected by all facets of society’s activities (see Figure A), possessing a public health perspective is relevant to a wide variety of other professions and disciplines. Although doctors and nurses, social workers, teachers, etc., work with individuals, this book provides new insights for them to consider individuals within the wider context and offers increased possibilities for problem solving. For example, poor living conditions adversely affect school- work, dysfunctional families militate against a patient’s recovery and fear of violence on a housing estate limits the social life of an older person, which in turn creates isolation, loneliness and health deterioration. Given this broader perspective, the solution to a problem may lie in improving the wider environment rather than focusing on the symptoms exhibited by the individual. Taking a public health perspective therefore increases the opportunities for improving the population’s health and well-being. We aim to demonstrate to readers, through practical examples, the network of knowledge and skills required to tackle the challenges that daily confront all professionals concerned with people’s health. Each chapter is devoted to exploring one of the ten areas of public health competence as defined by the Faculty of Public Health Medicine.1 This has been achieved using a problem- based, self-directed learning model. Each of the chapter authors was given a broad brief but with some leeway and licence in how they presented their work. This reflects the reality of public health practice. Foreward.