Oxford Handbook of Public Health Practice

by Pencheon, David; Guest, Charles; Melzer, David; Gray, J. A. Muir

• ISBN13: 9780192632210
• ISBN10: 0192632213
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2001-10-18
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This is a book of FIRST RESORT. The handbook will help a practitioner scope a public health issue more quickly, more thoroughly, and more systematically. It introduces learning practitioners to the early phases of approaching a public health issue. They can then develop their own more systematci framework of addressing public health problems and solutions more quickly and effectively. Each chapter clearly lays out how to subdivide the approach to a public health concept, method, or issue into specific areas or tasks. The handbook outlines the esential stepst to help the reader achieve the following: understand the population approaches to population health problems; deconstruct a public health problem into a number of tasks and know what competencies are needed to achieve these tasks; improve the reader's ability to helap and/or teach others to be able to understand the fundamental issues clearly; to be able to tell their employer more clearly what needs to be done about a particular issue; and to feel more confident and competent about what they do know and what they don't know when addressing public health issues.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	xi
Introduction	xvii
Public health assessment
Introduction	2	(2)
Assessing information	4	(10)
Assessing acute health trends: surveillance	14	(6)
Assessing longer-term health trends: registers	20	(8)
Assessing health status	28	(10)
Assessing health needs	38	(10)
Assessing health impacts on a population	48	(14)
Options and decisions
Introduction	60	(2)
Scoping public health problems	62	(10)
Turning public health problems into answerable questions	72	(8)
Finding evidence	80	(6)
Appraising research evidence	86	(13)
Managing public health information and knowledge	99	(3)
Economic evaluation--the science of making choices	102	(10)
Values in public health	112	(6)
Ethics in public health	118	(10)
Policy
Introduction	126	(2)
Shaping your organization's policy	128	(8)
Translating goals and targets into public health action	136	(10)
Influencing government policy: a framework	146	(10)
Influencing government policy: a national view	156	(6)
Using media advocacy to shape policy	162	(6)
Influencing international policy	168	(14)
Direct action
Introduction	178	(4)
Facilitating community action	182	(8)
Effective health promotion programmes	190	(10)
Protecting and promoting health--behavioural approaches	200	(6)
Protecting health, sustaining the environment	206	(12)
Protecting and promoting health in the workplace	218	(8)
'Hard to reach' populations	226	(10)
Screening	236	(8)
Managing a communicable disease outbreak	244	(8)
Managing disasters and other public health crises	252	(10)
The public health professional as political activist	262	(14)
Health care assessment
Introduction	270	(6)
The meaning of quality in health care	276	(16)
Evaluating health care using routine data	292	(8)
Evaluating health care technologies	300	(8)
Evaluating health care process	308	(11)
Evaluating health care outcomes	319	(5)
Health care assurance
Introduction	322	(2)
Setting priorities in health care	324	(10)
Learning from international models of funding and delivering health care	334	(8)
Strategic approaches to planning health care	342	(6)
Commissioning health care: general principles	348	(10)
Commissioning health care: specialized services	358	(8)
Improving the health care system: overview	366	(8)
Promoting equity in health care	374	(10)
Governance and accountability	384	(8)
Improving the use of evidence in practice	392	(8)
Using guidance and frameworks	400	(14)
Personal effectiveness
Introduction	412	(2)
Developing leadership skills	414	(8)
Effecting change at meetings	422	(6)
Writing to effect change	428	(8)
Working with the media	436	(6)
Communicating risk	442	(10)
Developing public health strategies: the consultant's role	452	(8)
Assessing and improving your own professional practice	460	(14)
Organizational development
Introduction	472	(2)
Working in teams	474	(7)
Involving `consumers'	481	(11)
Project management	492	(6)
Operational and business planning	498	(6)
Criteria to assess effective public health action	504	(10)
Case Studies
Introduction	512	(2)
Investigating a disease cluster	514	(8)
Public health in poorer countries	522	(10)
Empowering community health: women in Samoa	532	(8)
Disability and ageing: a public health issue	540	(4)
Genetics in disease prevention	544	(6)
Action against smoking	550	(6)
Diabetes: developing a local strategy	556	(8)
Depression: a public health issue	564	(8)
Injury prevention	572	(9)
Classics in public health practice	581	(4)
Sources of reference	585	(6)
Abbreviations and glossary	591	(8)
Index	599