U.S. Health in International Perspective PDF Download

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309264146
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.

Author: Angelo Antoci
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 81

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Book Description
Vulnerability to scarcity or to reduction of natural capital depends on defensive substitution possibilities that, in turn, are affected by the availability of other productive factors. However, in several developing countries asset distribution tends to be highly skewed. Taking into account these elements, this paper argues that environmental degradation may represent a push factor of economic development in an economy polarized into two main classes (the Rich and the Poor) and characterized by the following stylized facts: a) the main income source of the rural poor is self-employment in traditional activities highly depending on natural resources; b) labor remuneration in rural sector represents the basic opportunity cost for (unskilled) labor in the economy. Thus, given that environmental degradation reduces labor productivity of the rural poor, it may depress wages; c) production of the modern sector managed by the rich is less affected by depletion of natural resources because they can adopt defensive strategies that the poor cannot. They are able to defend themselves by partially substituting natural resources with physical capital accumulation and wage labor employment. We will show that, in this context, environmental depletion may benefit the modern sector through an increase in low cost labor supply and, in turn, it may stimulate economic transition. However the structural change is likely to result in an increase in inequality.

Author: Éloi Laurent
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030678601
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
The purpose of this volume, bringing together key actors of the well-being community, including scholars and policy-makers, is to advance the understanding and undertaking of the well-being transition away from growth and toward resilience and sustainability, at a time when this progress has become a vital necessity. A decade after the publication of the Stiglitz Report (2009), alternative visions to GDP and growth, that flourished in the 1970s, have re-emerged from all corners of the world, at all levels of governance. Yet, GDP and growth remain very much dominant in defining public policies, influencing businesses and shaping imaginaries. This book moves forward on two urgent tasks that stand before us in order to make progress in the well-being transition: first, connecting well-being to sustainability in a consistent framework highlighting their complementarity, using health as a pivot; second, operationalizing well-being indicators, i.e. integrating them into policy at all levels of governance.

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309452961
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 583

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Book Description
In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

Author: Joseph Alcamo
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biodiversity
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Ecosystems and Human Well-Being is the first product of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a four-year international work program designed to meet the needs of decisionmakers for scientific information on the links between ecosystem change and human well-being. The book offers an overview of the project, describing the conceptual framework that is being used, defining its scope, and providing a baseline of understanding that all participants need to move forward. The Millennium Assessment focuses on how humans have altered ecosystems, and how changes in ecosystem services have affected human well-being, how ecosystem changes may affect people in future decades, and what types of responses can be adopted at local, national, or global scales to improve ecosystem management and thereby contribute to human well-being and poverty alleviation. The program was launched by United National Secretary-General Kofi Annan in June 2001, and the primary assessment reports will be released by Island Press in 2005. Leading scientists from more than 100 nations are conducting the assessment, which can aid countries, regions, or companies by: providing a clear, scientific picture of the current sta

Author: David V. McQueen
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387377573
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
Pandemics, substance abuse, natural disasters, obesity, and warfare: these are not only health crises but social crises as well. Now a panel of leaders in global health explores the vital but understudied social theories behind the practice of health promotion, including cultural capital, risk and causality, systems theory, and the dynamic between individual and community.

Author: Harry Lintsen
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319766961
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 586

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Book Description
This open access book examines more than two centuries of societal development using novel historical and statistical approaches. It applies the well-being monitor developed by Statistics Netherlands that has been endorsed by a significant part of the international, statistical community. It features The Netherlands as a case study, which is an especially interesting example; although it was one of the world’s richest countries around 1850, extreme poverty and inequality were significant problems of well-being at the time. Monitors of 1850, 1910, 1970 and 2015 depict the changes in three dimensions of well-being: the quality of life 'here and now', 'later' and 'elsewhere'. The analysis of two centuries shows the solutions to the extreme poverty problem and the appearance of new sustainability problems, especially in domestic and foreign ecological systems. The study also reveals the importance of natural capital: soil, air, water and subsoil resources, showing their relation with the social structure of the ‘here and now ́. Treatment and trade of natural resources also impacted on the quality of life ‘later’ and ‘elsewhere.’ Further, the book illustrates the role of natural capital by dividing the capital into three types of raw materials and concomitant material flows: bio-raw materials, mineral and fossil subsoil resources. Additionally, the analysis of the institutional context identifies the key roles of social groups in well-being development. The book ends with an assessment of the solutions and barriers offered by the historical anchoring of the well-being and sustainability issues. This unique analysis of well-being and sustainability and its institutional analysis appeals to historians, statisticians and policy makers.

Author: Nadine Bratchatzek
Publisher: Washington State University Press
ISBN: 1636820808
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
The desire to understand people’s influence on ecosystems has inspired scientific studies and analyses of the stress individuals and communities place on the environment, human well-being, and the tradeoffs between them. As an emerging discipline, Structural Human Ecology is devoted to unlocking the dynamic links between population, environment, social organization, and technology. The new field offers cutting-edge research in risk analysis that can be used to evaluate environmental policies and thus help citizens and societies worldwide learn how to most effectively mitigate human impacts on the biosphere. The essays in this volume were presented by leading international scholars at a 2011 symposium honoring the late Dr. Eugene Rosa, then Boeing Distinguished Professor of Environmental Sociology at WSU.

Author: Laura Musikanski
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000074129
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 123

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Book Description
Happiness, Well-being and Sustainability: A Course in Systems Change is the first textbook bridging the gap between personal happiness and sustainable social change. The book provides a guide for students to increase their skills, literacy and knowledge about connections between a sense of well-being and systems change. Further, it can help students live a life that brings them happiness and contributes to the well-being of others and the sustainability of our planet. The book is presented in seven chapters covering the subjects of systems thinking, personal and societal values, measuring happiness, human needs, ecological sustainability and public policy. In addition, each section includes engaging exercises to empower students to develop their own ideas, prompts for group discussion, suggestions for additional research and an extensive list of resources and references. The book is written in the context of systems thinking with a style that is approachable and accessible. Happiness, Well-being and Sustainability provides essential reading for students in courses on happiness, social change and sustainability studies, and provides a comprehensive framework for instructors looking to initiate courses in this field. A website to support the professors teaching the book is available at : https://www.happycounts.org/coursebook.html

Author: Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9811986614
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
The book addresses the gaps in the body of knowledge from two grounds. Firstly, it adds value through explaining the dynamics of natural resource governance by focusing on the particular arenas of biodiversity resources, water resources and climate change in developing country context. Secondly, it critically scrutinizes the market-centric perspectives on one hand and combines political economy questions that are generally overlooked in discussions of current resource governance framework, on the other. It develops a new framework to examine the reasons behind the degradations of natural resources to offer sustainable solutions to the problems. It shows that the natural resources have been exploited beyond sustainable limits due to the structural rigidities, embedded in, and reproduced by, fragile institutions and unequal power-sharing arrangements under the market-centric economic system. The book formulates a new understanding of sustainability in case of usage and management of natural resources by incorporating the idea of human sociality. It highlights the importance of the well-being of nature, and human beings must go side by side; one without the other is not a sustainable option. The book contains key learnings for scholars and researchers working in the field of development studies who wish to gain a deeper understanding on the sustainable natural resource governance specifically in the contexts of developing countries. For policymakers and policy advocates, the book serves as the groundwork on policies regarding biodiversity resources, water resources, and climate change, specific to the context of developing countries, providing more relevant contents in terms of laying out justification for policy objectives.