Since 2013, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has embarked on a pioneering effort to advance a Culture of Health in which “everyone in our diverse society leads healthier lives now and for ...generations to come." To put the Culture of Health vision into action, RAND Health supported development of an action framework and measurement strategy. This report summarizes the stakeholder engagement efforts RAND used to inform this work.
Disease Diplomacy Davies, Sara E; Kamradt-Scott, Adam; Rushton, Simon
2015, 2015-03-15
eBook
In the age of air travel and globalized trade, pathogens that once took months or even years to spread beyond their regions of origin can now circumnavigate the globe in a matter of hours. Amid ...growing concerns about such epidemics as Ebola, SARS, MERS, and H1N1, disease diplomacy has emerged as a key foreign and security policy concern as countries work to collectively strengthen the global systems of disease surveillance and control.
The revision of the International Health Regulations (IHR), eventually adopted by the World Health Organization’s member states in 2005, was the foremost manifestation of this novel diplomacy. The new regulations heralded a profound shift in international norms surrounding global health security, significantly expanding what is expected of states in the face of public health emergencies and requiring them to improve their capacity to detect and contain outbreaks.
Drawing on Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink’s “norm life cycle” framework and based on extensive documentary analysis and key informant interviews, Disease Diplomacy traces the emergence of these new norms of global health security, the extent to which they have been internalized by states, and the political and technical constraints governments confront in attempting to comply with their new international obligations. The authors also examine in detail the background, drafting, adoption, and implementation of the IHR while arguing that the very existence of these regulations reveals an important new understanding: that infectious disease outbreaks and their management are critical to national and international security.
The book will be of great interest to academic researchers, postgraduate students, and advanced undergraduates in the fields of global public health, international relations, and public policy, as well as health professionals, diplomats, and practitioners with a professional interest in global health security.
Taking a political economic approach, Schneider examines the conditions under which community-based health groups are emerging and explores the ways different constituencies address health dilemmas. ...She delineates future roles for new participants in health care, new models of community health, and a new medical pluralism.
Although the United States spends 16 percent of its gross domestic product on health care, more than 46 million people have no insurance coverage, while one in four Americans report difficulty paying ...for medical care. Indeed, the U.S. health care system, despite being the most expensive health care system in the world, ranked thirty-seventh in a comprehensive World Health Organization report. With health care spending only expected to increase, Americans are again debating new ideas for expanding coverage and cutting costs. According to the historian Paul V. Dutton, Americans should look to France, whose health care system captured the World Health Organization's number-one spot.
InDifferential Diagnoses, Dutton debunks a common misconception among Americans that European health care systems are essentially similar to each other and vastly different from U.S. health care. In fact, the Americans and the French both distrust "socialized medicine." Both peoples cherish patient choice, independent physicians, medical practice freedoms, and private insurers in a qualitatively different way than the Canadians, the British, and many others. The United States and France have struggled with the same ideals of liberty and equality, but one country followed a path that led to universal health insurance; the other embraced private insurers and has only guaranteed coverage for the elderly and the very poor.
How has France reconciled the competing ideals of individual liberty and social equality to assure universal coverage while protecting patient and practitioner freedoms? What can Americans learn from the French experience, and what can the French learn from the U.S. example?Differential Diagnosesanswers these questions by comparing how employers, labor unions, insurers, political groups, the state, and medical professionals have shaped their nations' health care systems from the early years of the twentieth century to the present day.
Substantially revised and updated, the sixth edition of this classic book continues to define healthy ageing by illustrating how to prevent disease and make large-scale improvements towards health ...and wellness.
American science produces the best medical treatments in the world. Yet U.S. citizens lag behind in life expectancy and quality of life. Robert Kaplan marshals extensive data to make the case that ...U.S. health care priorities are sorely misplaced—invested in attacking disease, not in solving social problems that engender disease in the first place.
International migration, particularly to Europe, has increased in the last few decades, making research on aspects of this phenomenon, including numbers, challenges, and successes, particularly ...vital. This Special Issue highlights this necessary and relevant area of research. It presents 37 articles including studies on diverse topics relating to the health of refugees and migrants. Most articles (28) present studies focusing on European host countries. The focus on Europe is justified if we take into consideration the increased number of refugees and migrants who have come to Europe in recent years. However, there are also articles which present studies from countries in other continents. The topics discussed in the Issue include healthcare utilization, infectious diseases, mother and child health, mental health, and chronic diseases. Finding from the included articles indicate that further development of guidelines and policies at both local and international levels is needed. Priorities must be set by encouraging and funding in-depth research that aims to evaluate the impact of existing policies and interventions. Such research will help us formulate recommendations for the development of strategies and approaches that improve and strengthen the integration of migrants and refugees into the host countries.