This new health atlas of Japan presents a series of maps about the health of the contemporary Japanese population, i.e. detailed maps of health indicators in small areas using cartograms. This is the first comprehensive small-area based health atlas about contemporary Japan using vital statistics from 1995-2014. Each map is supplemented with concise explanations written by leading epidemiologists and health geographers in Japan. The book employs various cutting-edge methods in spatial epidemiology, Bayesian spatial smoothing for the reliable mapping of mortality indices, advanced cartographic transformations using the concept of aerial cartograms, and summary statistics of socioeconomic health inequalities. The atlas highlights geographical aspects of social gradients in health by comparing mortality maps with distribution of deprivation index during the recent long-lasting economic stagnation period of Japan known as the lost decades. This health atlas will be a useful resource for international comparisons between Japan and other advanced countries in terms of health and related socioeconomic disparities between regions. It will be of interest to public health practitioners, administrators, researchers and students working on health geography and public health.

Emerging infectious diseases are often due to environmental disruption, which exposes microbes to a different niche that selects for new virulence traits and facilitates transmission between animals and humans. Thus, health of humans also depends upon health of animals and the environment – a concept called One Health. This book presents core concepts, compelling evidence, successful applications, and remaining challenges of One Health approaches to thwarting the threat of emerging infectious disease. Written by scientists working in the field, this book will provide a series of "stories" about how disruption of the environment and transmission from animal hosts is responsible for emerging human and animal diseases. Explains the concept of One Health and the history of the One Health paradigm shift. Traces the emergence of devastating new diseases in both animals and humans. Presents case histories of notable, new zoonoses, including West Nile virus, hantavirus, Lyme disease, SARS, and salmonella. Links several epidemic zoonoses with the environmental factors that promote them. Offers insight into the mechanisms of microbial evolution toward pathogenicity. Discusses the many causes behind the emergence of antibiotic resistance. Presents new technologies and approaches for public health disease surveillance. Offers political and bureaucratic strategies for promoting the global acceptance of One Health.

“A pleasingly written lay person’s primer to disease epidemiology, as well as a gentle introduction to the social and cultural history of medicine.” —The Biologist Includes extensive illustrations Behind every disease is a story, a narrative woven of multiple threads—from the natural history of the disease to the tale of its discovery and its place in world events. The Atlas of Disease is the first book to tell these stories in a new and innovative way, interweaving new maps with contemporary illustrations to chart some of the world’s deadliest pandemics and epidemics. Sandra Hempel reveals how maps have uncovered insightful information about the history of disease, from the seventeenth-century plague maps that revealed the radical idea that diseases might be carried and spread by humans, to cholera maps in the 1800s showing the disease was carried by water, right up to the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s, and the more recent devastating Ebola outbreak. Crucially, The Atlas of Disease also explores how cartographic techniques have been used to combat epidemics by revealing previously hidden patterns. These are the stories of discoveries that have changed the course of history, affected human evolution, stimulated advances in medicine, and saved countless lives. “Ample and well-chosen pictures . . . In fact, it is the sort of book that one can leaf through, looking only at illustrations and maps, and so is suitable for the informed and curious lay reader . . . Healthcare professionals and historians should also find it of interest.” —British Society for the History of Medicine Acclaim for Sandra Hempel’s previous works of medical history “A real-life scientific thriller.” —Kirkus Reviews “Riveting.” —Daily Telegraph “Fascinating . . . [A] masterful combination of telling details, engrossing prose, and drama.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Collects together data compiled from 177 World Health Organization Member States/Countries on mental health care. Coverage includes policies, plans and laws for mental health, human and financial resources available, what types of facilities providing care, and mental health programmes for prevention and promotion.

This major profile of global health maps the prevalence and causes of disease as well as the economic, social, and environmental factors that influence well-being.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) granted the federal government unprecedented regulatory authority over health insurance and the health care industry. Those changes ignore the fundamental problems with the existing system: the incentives that have caused runaway costs and excluded millions of Americans from accessing the world's best medical care. Many former ACA supporters now push for an even more extreme takeover of the US system: overt single-payer health care, or "Medicare for All."In Restoring Quality Health Care, Dr. Scott W. Atlas offers a fundamentally different approach to improving America's health care system. Instead of framing the debate with the traditional trade-offs--fewer benefits versus higher taxes--his plan is modeled around a new paradigm: restoring the appropriate market-based incentives to increase the quality of health care and reduce its costs. He proposes a six-point reform plan for US health care centering on lower-cost catastrophic coverage and universal, significantly expanded health savings accounts (HSAs). The plan transforms the US health care system and enhances innovation by instilling market-based competition and empowering consumers through incentives and strategic deregulation. Most important, the health care reforms in this plan reflect the key principles held by Americans concerning what they value and expect from health care in terms of access, choice, and quality.