Resource added for the Health Navigator program 105392.

"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.

Providing concrete steps that federal policymakers should take to promote prevention both within and outside our healthcare sector, Prevention First not only sounds the alarm about the terrible consequences of preventable disease but serves as a rallying cry that we can and must do better in this country to reduce preventable deaths.

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.

Demonstrating that public health and prevention program development is as much art as science, this book brings together expert program developers to offer practical guidance and principles in developing effective behavior-change curricula. Feinberg and the team of experienced contributors cover evidence-based programs addressing a range of physical, mental, and behavioral health problems, including ones targeting families, specific populations, and developmental stages. The contributors describe their own professional journeys and decisions in creating, refining, testing, and disseminating a range of programs and strategies. Readers will learn about selecting change-promoting targets based on existing research; developing and creating effective and engaging content; considering implementation and dissemination contexts in the development process; and revising, refining, expanding, abbreviating, and adapting a curriculum across multiple iterations. Designing Evidence-Based Public Health and Prevention Programs is essential reading for prevention scientists, prevention practitioners, and program developers in community agencies. It also provides a unique resource for graduate students and postgraduates in family sciences, developmental psychology, clinical psychology, social work, education, nursing, public health, and counselling.

"For those who seek to improve health through policy change, this book is intended to be your companion. It is written by practitioners, elected officials, and other policymakers who have firsthand experience with the complex dynamics of policymaking through their professional careers. Its chapters share perspectives on the power of policy from the federal, state, and local levels; demonstrate several evidence-based policy packages developed by leading public health organizations; provide perspectives not only on legislative policy but on the roles of litigation and regulation; and reveal the existing threats to using policy to impact health. We hope that this book will inspire current and future public health practitioners and pMolicymakers to use policy to achieve optimal and equitable health for all"--

Using the media to promote public health is an innovative and valuable approach. Media Advocacy and Public Health develops the concept of media advocacy as a central strategy for the prevention of public health problems. How we think about health problems, and what we do about them, is largely determined by how they are reported on television, radio, and in the newspaper. Often, crucial issues of public health policy are discussed and decided only after they are made visible by the media. A traditional communication strategy like social marketing focuses on giving people a message. Media advocacy gives people a voice. The first book of its kind, Media Advocacy and Public Health lays out the theoretical framework and practical guidelines to successful media advocacy strategies. Eight case studies, ranging from alcohol to AIDS, vividly illustrate how media advocacy has been successfully applied.