Download or read book The Cancer Crisis in Appalachia written by Nathan L. Vanderford and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kentucky has more cancer diagnoses and cancer-related deaths than any other state in the nation, and most of these cases are concentrated in the fifty-four counties that constitute the Appalachian region of the commonwealth. These high rankings can be attributed to factors such as elevated smoking rates, unhealthy eating habits, lower levels of education, and limited access to health care. What is lost in the statistics is just how life-changing cancer can be—something that editors Nathan L. Vanderford, Lauren Hudson, and Chris Prichard have endeavored to address. The Cancer Crisis in Appalachia features essays written by a group of twenty high school and five undergraduate students, all of whom are residents of Kentucky's Appalachian region and are participants in the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center's Appalachian Career Training in Oncology (ACTION) program, which is funded by the National Cancer Institute's Youth Enjoy Science Program. These authentic and candid student essays detail the effects of cancer diagnoses and deaths on individuals, families, friends, and communities, and proclaim these cases as more than nameless statistics. The authors shed light on personal cancer stories in hopes of inspiring readers to avoid cancer-risk behaviors, get involved with cancer-prevention initiatives, give generously, and uplift cancer patients and their loved ones.
Download or read book Appalachian Health and Well being written by Robert L. Ludke and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2012-03-07 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Appalachians have been characterized as a population with numerous disparities in health and limited access to medical services and infrastructures, leading to inaccurate generalizations that inhibit their healthcare progress. Appalachians face significant challenges in obtaining effective care, and the public lacks information about both their healthcare needs and about the resources communities have developed to meet those needs. In Appalachian Health and Well-Being, editors Robert L. Ludke and Phillip J. Obermiller bring together leading researchers and practitioners to provide a much-needed compilation of data- and research-driven perspectives, broadening our understanding of strategies to decrease the health inequalities affecting both rural and urban Appalachians. The contributors propose specific recommendations for necessary research, suggest practical solutions for health policy, and present best practices models for effective health intervention. This in-depth analysis offers new insights for students, health practitioners, and policy makers, promoting a greater understanding of the factors affecting Appalachian health and effective responses to those needs.
Download or read book Ailing in Place written by Michele Morrone and published by Ohio University Press. This book was released on 2020-02-28 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Ailing in Place, Michele Morrone explores the relationship between environmental conditions in Appalachia and health outcomes that are too often ascribed to individual choices only. She applies quantitative data to observations from environmental health professionals to frame the ways in which the environment, as a social determinant of health, leads to health disparities in Appalachian communities. These examples—these stories of place—trace the impacts of water quality, waste disposal, and natural resource extraction on the health and quality of life of Appalachian people. Public health is inextricably linked to place. Environmental conditions such as contaminated water, unsafe food, and polluted air are as important as culture, community, and landscape in characterizing a place and determining the health outcomes of the people who live there. In some places, the state of the environment is a consequence of historical activities related to natural resources and cultural practices. In others, political decisions to achieve short-term economic objectives are made with little consideration of long-term public health consequences.
Download or read book Environmental Health Literacy written by Symma Finn and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-09-12 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores various and distinct aspects of environmental health literacy (EHL) from the perspective of investigators working in this emerging field and their community partners in research. Chapters aim to distinguish EHL from health literacy and environmental health education in order to classify it as a unique field with its own purposes and outcomes. Contributions in this book represent the key aspects of communication, dissemination and implementation, and social scientific research related to environmental health sciences and the range of expertise and interest in EHL. Readers will learn about the conceptual framework and underlying philosophical tenets of EHL, and its relation to health literacy and communications research. Special attention is given to topics like dissemination and implementation of culturally relevant environmental risk messaging, and promotion of EHL through visual technologies. Authoritative entries by experts also focus on important approaches to advancing EHL through community-engaged research and by engaging teachers and students at an early age through developing innovative STEM curriculum. The significance of theater is highlighted by describing the use of an interactive theater experience as an approach that enables community residents to express themselves in non-verbal ways.
Download or read book Appalachia Revisited written by William Schumann and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2016-07-22 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Known for its dramatic beauty and valuable natural resources, Appalachia has undergone significant technological, economic, political, and environmental changes in recent decades. Home to distinctive traditions and a rich cultural heritage, the area is also plagued by poverty, insufficient healthcare and education, drug addiction, and ecological devastation. This complex and controversial region has been examined by generations of scholars, activists, and civil servants -- all offering an array of perspectives on Appalachia and its people. In this innovative volume, editors William Schumann and Rebecca Adkins Fletcher assemble both scholars and nonprofit practitioners to examine how Appalachia is perceived both within and beyond its borders. Together, they investigate the region's transformation and analyze how it is currently approached as a topic of academic inquiry. Arguing that interdisciplinary and comparative place-based studies increasingly matter, the contributors investigate numerous topics, including race and gender, environmental transformation, university-community collaborations, cyber identities, fracking, contemporary activist strategies, and analyze Appalachia in the context of local-to-global change. A pathbreaking study analyzing continuity and change in the region through a global framework, Appalachia Revisited is essential reading for scholars and students as well as for policymakers, community and charitable organizers, and those involved in community development.
Download or read book From the Front Lines of the Appalachian Addiction Crisis written by Wendy Welch and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2020-08-26 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stories from doctors, nurses, and therapists dealing on a daily basis with the opioid crisis in Appalachia should be heartbreaking. Yet those told here also inspire with practical advice on how to assist those in addiction, from a grass-roots to a policy level. Readers looking for ways to combat the crisis will find suggestions alongside laughter, tears, and sometimes rage. Each author brings the passion of their profession and the personal losses they have experienced from addiction, and posits solutions and harm reduction with positivity, grace, and even humor. Authors representing seven states from northern, Coalfields, and southern Appalachia relate personal encounters with patients or providers who changed them forever. This is a history document, showing how we got here; an evidenced indictment of current policies failing those who need them most; an affirmation that Appalachia solves its own problems; and a collection of suggestions for best practice moving forward.
Download or read book Hiking Through written by Paul Stutzman and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2012-03-12 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With breathtaking descriptions and humorous anecdotes from his 2,176-mile journey along the Appalachian Trail, Paul Stutzman reveals how immersing himself in nature and befriending fellow hikers helped him recover from a devastating loss.
Download or read book The Unequal Burden of Cancer written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1999-06-11 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We know more about cancer prevention, detection, and treatment than ever beforeâ€"yet not all segments of the U.S. population have benefited to the fullest extent possible from these advances. Some ethnic minorities experience more cancer than the majority population, and poor peopleâ€"no matter what their ethnicityâ€"often lack access to adequate cancer care. This book provides an authoritative view of cancer as it is experienced by ethnic minorities and the medically underserved. It offers conclusions and recommendations in these areas: Defining and understanding special populations, and improving the collection of cancer-related data. Setting appropriate priorities for and increasing the effectiveness of specific National Institutes of Health (NIH) research programs, to ensure that special populations are represented in clinical trials. Disseminating research results to health professionals serving these populations, with sensitivity to the issues of cancer survivorship. The book provides background data on the nation's struggle against cancer, activities and expenditures of the NIH, and other relevant topics.
Download or read book Uneven Ground written by Ronald D. Eller and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2008-10-24 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This award-winning history examines the politics of progress in America through a close look at industrial development in Appalachia since WWII. Appalachia has played a complex role in the unfolding of American history. Early-twentieth-century critics of modernity saw the region as a remnant of frontier life that should be preserved and protected. However, supporters of material production and technology decried what they saw as a the isolation and backwardness of the region and sought to “uplift” its people through education and industrialization. In Uneven Ground, Ronald D. Eller examines the politics of development in Appalachia while exploring the idea of progress as it has evolved in America. “Passionate, clear, concise, and at times profound,” this volume demonstrates that Appalachia's struggle to overcome poverty, to live in harmony with the land, and to respect the value of community is a truly American story (Chad Berry, author of Southern Migrants, Northern Exiles). Winner of the Appalachian Studies Association’s Weatherford Award and the Southern Political Science Association’s V.O. Key Award
Download or read book Wide Neighborhoods written by Mary Breckinridge and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 1981-12-31 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the autobiography of Mary Breckinridge, the woman who founded the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS) in the mountains of eastern Kentucky in 1925. Riding out on horseback, the FNS nurse-midwives proved that high mortality rates and malnutrition did not need to be the norm in rural areas. By their example and through their graduates, the FNS exacted a lasting influence on family health care throughout the world.
Download or read book You Can Quit Smoking written by and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Desperate written by Kris Maher and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-10-25 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in Appalachian coal country, this “superb” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) legal drama follows one determined lawyer as he faces a coal industry giant in a seven-year battle over clean drinking water for a West Virginia community. For two decades, the water in the taps and wells of Mingo County didn’t look, smell, or taste right. Could the water be the root of the health problems—from kidney stones to cancer—in this Appalachian community? Environmental lawyer Kevin Thompson certainly thought so. For seven years, Thompson waged an epic legal battle against Massey Energy, West Virginia’s most powerful coal company, helmed by CEO Don Blankenship. While Massey’s lawyers worked out of a gray glass office tower in Charleston known as “the Death Star,” Thompson set up shop in a ramshackle hotel in the fading coal town of Williamson. Working with fellow lawyers and a crew of young activists, Thompson would eventually uncover the ruthless shortcuts that put the community’s drinking water at risk. Retired coal miners, women whose families had lived in the area’s coal camps for generations, a respected preacher and his brother, all put their trust in Thompson when they had nowhere else to turn. Desperate is a masterful work of investigative reporting about greed and denial, “both a case study in exploitation of the little guy and a playbook for confronting it” (Kirkus Reviews). Maher crafts a revealing portrait of a town besieged by hardship and heartbreak, and an inspiring account of one tenacious environmental lawyer’s mission to expose the truth and demand justice.
Download or read book Contemporary Public Health written by James W. HolsingerJr. and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2012-12-07 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public health refers to the management and prevention of disease within a population by promoting healthy behaviors and environments in an effort to create a higher standard of living. In this comprehensive volume, editor James W. Holsinger Jr. and an esteemed group of scholars and practitioners offer a concise overview of this burgeoning field, emphasizing that the need for effective services has never been greater. Designed as a supplemental text for introductory courses in public health practice at the undergraduate and graduate levels, Contemporary Public Health provides historical background that contextualizes the current state of the field and explores the major issues practitioners face today. It addresses essential topics such as the social and ecological determinants of health and their impact on practice, marginalized populations, the role of community-oriented primary care, the importance of services and systems research, accreditation, and the organizational landscape of the American public health system. Finally, it examines international public health and explores the potential of systems based on multilevel partnerships of government, academic, and nonprofit organizations. With fresh historical and methodological analyses conducted by an impressive group of distinguished authors, this text is an essential resource for practitioners, health advocates, and students.
Download or read book Hill Women written by Cassie Chambers and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After rising from poverty to earn two Ivy League degrees, an Appalachian lawyer pays tribute to the strong “hill women” who raised and inspired her, and whose values have the potential to rejuvenate a struggling region. “Destined to be compared to Hillbilly Elegy and Educated.”—BookPage (starred review) “A gritty, warm love letter to Appalachian communities and the resourceful women who lead them.”—Slate Nestled in the Appalachian mountains, Owsley County, Kentucky, is one of the poorest places in the country. Buildings are crumbling as tobacco farming and coal mining decline. But strong women find creative ways to subsist in the hills. Through the women who raised her, Cassie Chambers traces her path out of and back into the Kentucky mountains. Chambers’s Granny was a child bride who rose before dawn every morning to raise seven children. Granny’s daughter, Ruth—the hardest-working tobacco farmer in the county—stayed on the family farm, while Wilma—the sixth child—became the first in the family to graduate from high school. Married at nineteen and pregnant with Cassie a few months later, Wilma beat the odds to finish college. She raised her daughter to think she could move mountains, like the ones that kept her safe but also isolated from the larger world. Cassie would spend much of her childhood with Granny and Ruth in the hills of Owsley County. With her “hill women” values guiding her, she went on to graduate from Harvard Law. But while the Ivy League gave her opportunities, its privileged world felt far from her reality, and she moved home to help rural Kentucky women by providing free legal services. Appalachian women face issues from domestic violence to the opioid crisis, but they are also keeping their towns together in the face of a system that continually fails them. With nuance and heart, Chambers breaks down the myth of the hillbilly and illuminates a region whose poor communities, especially women, can lead it into the future.
Download or read book Ecotourism in Appalachia written by Al Fritsch and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-10-17 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tourism is the world's largest industry, and ecotourism is rapidly emerging as its fastest growing segment. As interest in nature travel increases, so does concern for conservation of the environment and the well-being of local peoples and cultures. Appalachia seems an ideal destination for ecotourists, with its rugged mountains, uniquely diverse forests, wild rivers, and lively arts culture. And ecotourism promises much for the region: protecting the environment while bringing income to disadvantaged communities. But can these promises be kept? Ecotourism in Appalachia examines both the potential and the threats that tourism holds for Central Appalachia. The authors draw lessons from destinations that have suffered from the "tourist trap syndrome," including Nepal and Hawaii. They conclude that only carefully regulated and locally controlled tourism can play a positive role in Appalachia's economic development.
Download or read book Mountains of Injustice written by Michele Morrone and published by Ohio University Press. This book was released on 2011-11-13 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research in environmental justice reveals that low-income and minority neighborhoods in our nation’s cities are often the preferred sites for landfills, power plants, and polluting factories. Those who live in these sacrifice zones are forced to shoulder the burden of harmful environmental effects so that others can prosper. Mountains of Injustice broadens the discussion from the city to the country by focusing on the legacy of disproportionate environmental health impacts on communities in the Appalachian region, where the costs of cheap energy and cheap goods are actually quite high. Through compelling stories and interviews with people who are fighting for environmental justice, Mountains of Injustice contributes to the ongoing debate over how to equitably distribute the long-term environmental costs and consequences of economic development. Contributors: Laura Allen, Brian Black, Geoffrey L. Buckley, Donald Edward Davis, Wren Kruse, Nancy Irwin Maxwell, Chad Montrie, Michele Morrone, Kathryn Newfont, John Nolt, Jedediah S. Purdy, and Stephen J. Scanlan.
Download or read book Appalachia North written by Matthew J. Ferrence and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Appalachia North is the first book-length treatment of the cultural position of northern Appalachia--roughly the portion of the official Appalachian Regional Commission zone that lies above the Mason-Dixon line. For Matthew Ferrence this region fits into a tight space of not-quite: not quite "regular" America and yet not quite Appalachia. Ferrence's sense of geographic ambiguity is compounded when he learns that his birthplace in western Pennsylvania is technically not a mountain but, instead, a dissected plateau shaped by the slow, deep cuts of erosion. That discovery is followed by the diagnosis of a brain tumor, setting Ferrence on a journey that is part memoir, part exploration of geology and place. Appalachia North is an investigation of how the labels of Appalachia have been drawn and written, and also a reckoning with how a body always in recovery can, like a region viewed always as a site of extraction, find new territories of growth.
