This book provides a practical, multidisciplinary approach to support a broad range of health professionals, social workers, public health workers and others tasked with providing health and care to young adults. The continuum of life begins with the health and wellness of parents prior to conception, followed by embryonic and fetal development, and continues throughout life. Each person’s life stages prepare them for the next and determine their health outcome and wellbeing over time. The text highlights the importance of promoting health throughout the lifespan, the influence of intergenerational health, and the concept of the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease in epigenetic processes and embryology. Authors underscore the importance of advancing health equity and lift up some of the ethical considerations in this work. The authors explore specific interventions in four major categories: Lifestyle, Infections, Nutrition, and Contraception / Pregnancy Planning (LINC). Preconception care is defined by the World Health Organization as the provision of biomedical, behavioural and social health interventions to women and couples before conception. Preconception care includes evidence-based interventions to improve health status, to reduce behaviours, individual and environmental factors that contribute to poor health outcomes. This book offers readers evidence-based guidance regarding fertility awareness and sperm health, genetic counselling and lifestyle assessments, as well as mental wellbeing, alcohol, tobacco and pharmacotherapy, and specialist care for those with chronic conditions, including a review of medications. It also covers relevant infections, including HIV and the Zika virus, as well as different types of environmental and occupational exposure. The book employs a framework focusing on health promotion, the social determinants of health, and the science behind preconception care. Strategies for improving preconception and interconception health, including examples from around the globe, are described in detail.

Human beings have always been affected by their surroundings. There are various health benefits linked to being able to access to nature; including increased physical activity, stress recovery, and the stimulation of child cognitive development. The Oxford Textbook of Nature and Public Health provides a broad and inclusive picture of the relationship between our own health and the natural environment. All aspects of this unique relationship are covered, ranging from disease prevention through physical activity in green spaces to innovative ecosystem services, such as climate change adaptation by urban trees. Potential hazardous consequences are also discussed including natural disasters, vector-borne pathogens, and allergies. This book analyses the complexity of our human interaction with nature and includes sections for example epigenetics, stress physiology, and impact assessments. These topics are all interconnected and fundamental for reaching a full understanding of the role of nature in public health and wellbeing. Much of the recent literature on environmental health has primarily described potential threats from our natural surroundings. The Oxford Textbook of Nature and Public Health instead focuses on how nature can positively impact our health and wellbeing, and how much we risk losing by destroying it. The all-inclusive approach provides a comprehensive and complete coverage of the role of nature in public health, making this textbook invaluable reading for health professionals, students, and researchers within public health, environmental health, and complementary medicine.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. ​This handbook synthesizes and analyzes the growing knowledge base on life course health development (LCHD) from the prenatal period through emerging adulthood, with implications for clinical practice and public health. It presents LCHD as an innovative field with a sound theoretical framework for understanding wellness and disease from a lifespan perspective, replacing previous medical, biopsychosocial, and early genomic models of health. Interdisciplinary chapters discuss major health concerns (diabetes, obesity), important less-studied conditions (hearing, kidney health), and large-scale issues (nutrition, adversity) from a lifespan viewpoint. In addition, chapters address methodological approaches and challenges by analyzing existing measures, studies, and surveys. The book concludes with the editors’ research agenda that proposes priorities for future LCHD research and its application to health care practice and health policy. Topics featured in the Handbook include: The prenatal period and its effect on child obesity and metabolic outcomes. Pregnancy complications and their effect on women’s cardiovascular health. A multi-level approach for obesity prevention in children. Application of the LCHD framework to autism spectrum disorder. Socioeconomic disadvantage and its influence on health development across the lifespan. The importance of nutrition to optimal health development across the lifespan. The Handbook of Life Course Health Development is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians/professionals, and graduate students in developmental psychology/science; maternal and child health; social work; health economics; educational policy and politics; and medical law as well as many interrelated subdisciplines in psychology, medicine, public health, mental health, education, social welfare, economics, sociology, and law.

Healthy ageing has long been a neglected area of epidemiological research as the traditional focus has been on specific chronic diseases of older life. There is a growing consensus from scientists, research funders and policy makers that ageing itself needs to be studied from an interdisciplinary and life course perspective, to inform strategies for reducing the societal and individual costs of an ageing population. A Life Course Approach to Healthy Ageing is a synthesis of life course perspectives in epidemiology and interdisciplinary perspectives in ageing research. It brings together expert investigators of maturing birth cohort and ageing studies, cross-cutting methodologists, and authorities in ageing research and knowledge transfer from across the world in one wide-ranging volume. Contributors discuss how aspects of healthy ageing are conceptualised, defined and measured; relate to each other; change across life; and are influenced by biological, psychological and social factors operating from early life onwards. They identify research gaps, and suggest how evidence from observational studies can be strengthened through improved study design and longitudinal analysis, thereby increasing the research contribution to practice or policy change. The book considers how we might delay or slow down the progressive, generalised impairment of function that occurs at the individual, body system and cellular levels, as people grow older. It also considers the determinants of wellbeing in older people, including personal fulfilment, positive emotions and social relationships. Broad in scope, discussing topics from genetics to psychological and social wellbeing, A Life Course Approach to Healthy Ageing is a key resource for epidemiologists, social scientists, clinicians, public health physicians, policy makers and practitioners with a research interest in healthy ageing.

This landmark publication provides the first definitive account of how and why subtle influences on the fetus and during early life can have such profound consequences for adult health and diseases. Although the epidemiological evidence for this link has long proved compelling, it is only much more recently that the scientific and physiological basis has begun to be studied in depth and fully understood. The compilation, written by many of the world's leading experts in this exciting field, summarizes these scientific and clinical advances.

Children are the foundation of the United States, and supporting them is a key component of building a successful future. However, millions of children face health inequities that compromise their development, well-being, and long-term outcomes, despite substantial scientific evidence about how those adversities contribute to poor health. Advancements in neurobiological and socio-behavioral science show that critical biological systems develop in the prenatal through early childhood periods, and neurobiological development is extremely responsive to environmental influences during these stages. Consequently, social, economic, cultural, and environmental factors significantly affect a child's health ecosystem and ability to thrive throughout adulthood. Vibrant and Healthy Kids: Aligning Science, Practice, and Policy to Advance Health Equity builds upon and updates research from Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity (2017) and From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development (2000). This report provides a brief overview of stressors that affect childhood development and health, a framework for applying current brain and development science to the real world, a roadmap for implementing tailored interventions, and recommendations about improving systems to better align with our understanding of the significant impact of health equity.