Download or read book U S Health in International Perspective written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2013-04-12 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book Communities in Action written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2017-04-27 with total page 583 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Role of Individual Or Neighborhood Factors written by Henry Fisher Raymond and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The majority of new HIV infections occur among high-risk groups such as men who have sex with men (MSM) and transfemales. Segments of these populations are also more likely to be economically disadvantaged. Economic disadvantage or low socioeconomic status has been linked to disease acquisition, morbidities and mortality. Interventions have been proposed to address these health issues through the reduction of poverty. However, this approach to intervention does not address underlying structural factors such as high HIV prevalence in impoverished neighborhoods and thus in social and sexual networks. The present analysis examines low individual socioeconomic status and /or social and sexual network factors and their relationship to HIV acquisition risk among three populations at high-risk for HIV infection. Geographic analysis examined residential patterns and neighborhood patterns of HIV prevalence in San Francisco. Data collected in San Francisco from White MSM, Black MSM and transfemales were analyzed using Poisson regression to determine the factors associated with engaging in more episodes of potentially serodiscordant unprotected receptive anal intercourse. As expected, transfemales and Black MSM were more likely to live in areas of higher HIV prevalence and lower income compared to White MSM. Interestingly the areas of higher HIV prevalence and lower income were also the areas with greater numbers of HIV prevention and care services. Black MSM and transfemales had lower socioeconomic status (SES) scores compared to White MSM. Black MSM were more likely to report serodiscordant partnerships and higher numbers of potentially serodiscordant unprotected sex acts. Decreasing SES and increasing neighborhood HIV/AIDS case density did not predict serodiscordant partnerships in any group. Increasing neighborhood HIV prevalence predicted an increase in the number of potentially serodiscordant unprotected sex acts among transfemales and Black MSM but only significantly so for transfemales. HIV prevention interventions must also consider neighborhood factors such as neighborhood HIV prevalence in addition to considering individual level behavior change.

Download or read book Neighborhoods and Health written by Ichirō Kawachi and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2003 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do places make a difference to people's health and wellbeing? This book presents a state-of-the-art account of the theories, methods, and empirical evidence linking neighbourhood conditions to population health.

Download or read book Social Factors and Community Well Being written by Youngwha Kee and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 109 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores social factors that influence well-being, as well as the relationship between these factors. It examines individual areas of social policy from the perspective of children’s well-being, gender equity, and the impact of crime and social capital. The book discusses the relationships of well-being with the provision of public services, with developing a sense of community, and dimensions of happiness in nations. Bringing together perspectives from around the globe, the book provides both theoretical and applied explorations. It links the idea of influencing social factors and outcomes to community well-being, thus adding a new perspective. In doing so, it reflects the new and exciting research that is being conducted at the intersection between social factors, policy, impacts, and community well-being.

Download or read book Neighborhood and Life Chances written by Harriet B. Newburger and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-02-17 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does the place where you lived as a child affect your health as an adult? To what degree does your neighbor's success influence your own potential? The importance of place is increasingly recognized in urban research as an important variable in understanding individual and household outcomes. Place matters in education, physical health, crime, violence, housing, family income, mental health, and discrimination—issues that determine the quality of life, especially among low-income residents of urban areas. Neighborhood and Life Chances: How Place Matters in Modern America brings together researchers from a range of disciplines to present the findings of studies in the fields of education, health, and housing. The results are intriguing and surprising, particularly the debate over Moving to Opportunity, an experiment conducted by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, designed to test directly the effects of relocating individuals away from areas of concentrated poverty. Its results, while strong in some respects, showed very different outcomes for boys and girls, with girls more likely than boys to experience positive outcomes. Reviews of the literature in education and health, supplemented by new research, demonstrate that the problems associated with residing in a negative environment are indisputable, but also suggest the directions in which solutions may lie. The essays collected in this volume give readers a clear sense of the magnitude of contemporary challenges in metropolitan America and of the role that place plays in reinforcing them. Although the contributors suggest many practical immediate interventions, they also recognize the vital importance of continued long-term efforts to rectify place-based limitations on lifetime opportunities.

Download or read book Improving Health in the Community written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1997-05-21 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do communities protect and improve the health of their populations? Health care is part of the answer but so are environmental protections, social and educational services, adequate nutrition, and a host of other activities. With concern over funding constraints, making sure such activities are efficient and effective is becoming a high priority. Improving Health in the Community explains how population-based performance monitoring programs can help communities point their efforts in the right direction. Within a broad definition of community health, the committee addresses factors surrounding the implementation of performance monitoring and explores the "why" and "how to" of establishing mechanisms to monitor the performance of those who can influence community health. The book offers a policy framework, applies a multidimensional model of the determinants of health, and provides sets of prototype performance indicators for specific health issues. Improving Health in the Community presents an attainable vision of a process that can achieve community-wide health benefits.

Download or read book The Role of Neighborhoods and Ethnorace in Constructing Health Related Disparities in California written by Silvia R. González and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the face of global health, economic, and climate crises, scholars in the fields of urban planning and public health are converging again to study how the spatial context--the arrangement of neighborhoods and their characteristics--affects the health outcomes of residents. This dissertation consists of three essays--each based on alternative modeling approaches found in the literature--that examine the relationship between individual and neighborhood characteristics and three health-related outcomes: cardiovascular disease, lifetime asthma, and walking. The neighborhood measures include demographic composition, economic position, the chemical environment, the human-made built environment, and access to neighborhood resources. I pay particular attention to the role of race and ethnicity (ethnorace) at the individual and neighborhood levels, which are both primary social determinants of health. Data for the outcomes of interest come from the 2013-2014 and 2015-2016 California Health Interview Survey. The data for the independent variables come from various sources, including the American Community Survey. The first essay uses an ecological framework and aggregate data to assess the relationship between ZIP Code-level health-related outcomes and neighborhood contextual independent variables. I find that neighborhood's ethnorace is a better predictor of the prevalence of heart disease than it is for predicting walking and heart disease. Furthermore, while Latino neighborhoods experience inequalities that can lead to greater health risks, such as primary care availability and significant disparities in income and education, these characteristics are not necessarily associated with a greater prevalence of heart disease and asthma. The second essay uses individual-level data to examine the strength of five types of independent variables (demographic, socioeconomic characteristics, medical insurance coverage, health behaviors, and comorbidity with other chronic diseases) in predicting walking, heart disease, and lifetime asthma. The findings show that an individual's ethnorace is a better predictor for asthma than the other dependent variables, and that as Latinos assimilate into American culture, the odds of lifetime asthma increase, as does the adoption of a more sedentary lifestyle. The third essay again uses individual-level data--this time with geographic identifiers that allow individual-level data to be matched with their respective neighborhood characteristics--to examine the multilevel relationship between individual-level outcomes of interest. The results show that ethnorace continues to be a more important predictor for heart disease than for the other outcomes of interest, and that patterns between assimilation and the odds of walking continue to hold true. A significant finding across all essays is that neighborhood-effects are of secondary importance compared to more proximal individual and household-level effects, particularly for lifetime asthma and heart disease. These findings have implications for place-based interventions, as these alone may not lead to anticipated health benefits if they do not consider how to simultaneously incorporate programs and activities that address individual risk factors.

Download or read book Neighborhood Poverty written by Jeanne Brooks-Gunn and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 1997-11-13 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perhaps the most alarming phenomenon in American cities has been the transformation of many neighborhoods into isolated ghettos where poverty is the norm and violent crime, drug use, out-of-wedlock births, and soaring school dropout rates are rampant. Public concern over these destitute areas has focused on their most vulnerable inhabitants—children and adolescents. How profoundly does neighborhood poverty endanger their well-being and development? Is the influence of neighborhood more powerful than that of the family? Neighborhood Poverty approaches these questions with an insightful and wide-ranging investigation into the effect of community poverty on children's physical health, cognitive and verbal abilities, educational attainment, and social adjustment. This two-volume set offers the most current research and analysis from experts in the fields of child development, social psychology, sociology and economics. Drawing from national and city-based sources, Volume I reports the empirical evidence concerning the relationship between children and community. As the essays demonstrate, poverty entails a host of problems that affects the quality of educational, recreational, and child care services.Poor neighborhoods usually share other negative features—particularly racial segregation and a preponderance of single mother families—that may adversely affect children. Yet children are not equally susceptible to the pitfalls of deprived communities. Neighborhood has different effects depending on a child's age, race, and gender, while parenting techniques and a family's degree of community involvement also serve as mitigating factors. Volume II incorporates empirical data on neighborhood poverty into discussions of policy and program development. The contributors point to promising community initiatives and suggest methods to strengthen neighborhood-based service programs for children. Several essays analyze the conceptual and methodological issues surrounding the measurement of neighborhood characteristics. These essays focus on the need to expand scientific insight into urban poverty by drawing on broader pools of ethnographic, epidemiological, and quantitative data. Volume II explores the possibilities for a richer and more well-rounded understanding of neighborhood and poverty issues. To grasp the human cost of poverty, we must clearly understand how living in distressed neighborhoods impairs children's ability to function at every level. Neighborhood Poverty explores the multiple and complex paths between community, family, and childhood development. These two volumes provide and indispensable guide for social policy and demonstrate the power of interdisciplinary social science to probe complex social issues.

Download or read book Building foundations How neighborhood social and built environment factors impact children s learning written by Parisa Parsafar and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2024-01-25 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Neighborhood Characteristics Social Capital and Depression written by Hannah Cohen-Cline and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 79 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction: Depression is one of the leading contributors to the global burden of disease, and can have a debilitating effect on quality of life. While it is already well-accepted that individual-level factors can influence depression, there is growing recognition of the important role the social and built environment plays in exacerbating or alleviating mental health problems. Depression risk varies across neighborhoods, and differences in neighborhood context may impact depression through diverse pathways, including reduced social services and lack of infrastructure, fear of crime and victimization, and a break down of social trust and community participation. Social capital, a measure of the social environment that encompasses the emotional, economic, and informational resources available to an individual or a group through their social networks, has been hypothesized as a protective factor against depression. It has further been hypothesized as a potential explanatory factor for the association between neighborhood context and depression. There is, however, little consensus about which domains of social capital are most relevant to depression, and while much of the previous literature has shown how social capital differs across neighborhoods, relatively less research is devoted to understanding what causes this variation. Understanding how the neighborhood social and built environment influences depression risk can inform decisions about investing scarce resources in community-based mental health promotion, and may ultimately contribute to a reduction in the burden depression places on individuals and the healthcare system. The goal of this dissertation was to explore pathways linking neighborhood characteristics, social capital, and depression. Although previous literature has evaluated these potential associations, inferences are limited due to concerns about unmeasured genetic and childhood environment confounding and self-selection into neighborhoods. This dissertation contributes to the literature by partially addressing these methodological concerns through the use of a twin study. Methods: This study uses data from the community-based University of Washington Twin Registry (UWTR). The UWTR contains over 8,000 monozygotic (identical, MZ) and dizygotic (fraternal, DZ) adult twins. It contains extensive survey data on sociodemographics, health behaviors and outcomes, and built environment measures linked to geocoded residential addresses. All twins included in the study were from same-sex pairs. Chapter One assesses the association between five neighborhood environment factors (neighborhood socioeconomic depression, crime, residential instability, gentrification, and income inequality) and depression. Chapter Two examines the association between different domains of social capital (cognitive and structural) and depression, and investigates whether social capital serves as a moderator or a mediator in the neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation-depression pathway. Chapter Three explores possible reasons for the variation of social capital across neighborhoods by assessing the associations between three built environment domains (neighborhood composition, pedestrian-oriented design, and commercial diversity) and social capital in the Puget Sound region of Washington State. All analyses employed a random intercept “within-between” twin model with the outcome hypothesized to follow a Poisson distribution. In this model, the individual-level outcome is regressed on the twin-pair mean exposure and the individual twin’s deviation from their twin pair mean. The within-pair effect is the main parameter of interest because it inherently controls for potential confounding due to genetic and childhood environment factors shared between twins within a pair. Results: In Chapter One, only neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation showed an association with depression in the unadjusted and adjusted models; specifically, higher deprivation was linked to greater depressive symptoms, independent of individual-level sociodemographic characteristics and population density. In Chapter Two, greater cognitive social capital, which refers to how individuals perceive their environment and was measured by sense of belonging, neighborhood social cohesion, workplace connections, and trust, was associated with fewer depressive symptoms. In contrast, structural social capital, which refers to social actions and behaviors and was measured by community participation, volunteerism, and social interactions, was not significantly associated with depression. Further, no social capital measure served as a mediator or a moderator in the neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation-depression association. Finally, in Chapter Three, only property values were linked to any of the neighborhood social capital variables, and these results were mixed. In the unadjusted models, property values were associated with greater sense of belonging, neighborhood social cohesion, and perceived safety; however, the associations were no longer significant in the models adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics. Further, no measure of pedestrian-oriented design or commercial diversity was associated with social capital. Conclusion: Overall, these results indicate that both neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation and cognitive social capital are important risk factors for depression, independent of individual-level sociodemographics characteristics. These two factors do not, however, contribute to depression risk through the same pathway, nor does social capital influence the neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation-depression association. Additionally, the study does not provide evidence that differences in characteristics of the built environment can explain differences in the distribution of depression across neighborhoods. This suggests that there is not a strong association between these measures of social capital and built environment, and that specific interventions targeting the built environment may not improve social capital directly. The finding that social capital and neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation do influence depression risk is of great importance; however, other pathways to improving social capital, and therefore depression, will need to be explored.

Download or read book Understanding Crime Trends written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2009-01-05 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Changes over time in the levels and patterns of crime have significant consequences that affect not only the criminal justice system but also other critical policy sectors. Yet compared with such areas as health status, housing, and employment, the nation lacks timely information and comprehensive research on crime trends. Descriptive information and explanatory research on crime trends across the nation that are not only accurate, but also timely, are pressing needs in the nation's crime-control efforts. In April 2007, the National Research Council held a two-day workshop to address key substantive and methodological issues underlying the study of crime trends and to lay the groundwork for a proposed multiyear NRC panel study of these issues. Six papers were commissioned from leading researchers and discussed at the workshop by experts in sociology, criminology, law, economics, and statistics. The authors revised their papers based on the discussants' comments, and the papers were then reviewed again externally. The six final workshop papers are the basis of this volume, which represents some of the most serious thinking and research on crime trends currently available.

Download or read book Mental Illness and Violence written by Eric Silver and published by LFB Scholarly Publishing. This book was released on 2001 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book develops a multilevel theoretical framework that argues that neighborhood social disorganization explains variations in the violent behavior of individuals with mental illnesses that is not explained by their individual-level characteristics.

Download or read book Critical Perspectives on Racial and Ethnic Differences in Health in Late Life written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2004-10-16 with total page 753 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In their later years, Americans of different racial and ethnic backgrounds are not in equally good-or equally poor-health. There is wide variation, but on average older Whites are healthier than older Blacks and tend to outlive them. But Whites tend to be in poorer health than Hispanics and Asian Americans. This volume documents the differentials and considers possible explanations. Selection processes play a role: selective migration, for instance, or selective survival to advanced ages. Health differentials originate early in life, possibly even before birth, and are affected by events and experiences throughout the life course. Differences in socioeconomic status, risk behavior, social relations, and health care all play a role. Separate chapters consider the contribution of such factors and the biopsychosocial mechanisms that link them to health. This volume provides the empirical evidence for the research agenda provided in the separate report of the Panel on Race, Ethnicity, and Health in Later Life.

Download or read book Preterm Birth written by Institute of Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2007-05-23 with total page 791 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The increasing prevalence of preterm birth in the United States is a complex public health problem that requires multifaceted solutions. Preterm birth is a cluster of problems with a set of overlapping factors of influence. Its causes may include individual-level behavioral and psychosocial factors, sociodemographic and neighborhood characteristics, environmental exposure, medical conditions, infertility treatments, and biological factors. Many of these factors co-occur, particularly in those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged or who are members of racial and ethnic minority groups. While advances in perinatal and neonatal care have improved survival for preterm infants, those infants who do survive have a greater risk than infants born at term for developmental disabilities, health problems, and poor growth. The birth of a preterm infant can also bring considerable emotional and economic costs to families and have implications for public-sector services, such as health insurance, educational, and other social support systems. Preterm Birth assesses the problem with respect to both its causes and outcomes. This book addresses the need for research involving clinical, basic, behavioral, and social science disciplines. By defining and addressing the health and economic consequences of premature birth, this book will be of particular interest to health care professionals, public health officials, policy makers, professional associations and clinical, basic, behavioral, and social science researchers.

Download or read book Fixing Broken Windows written by George L. Kelling and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1997 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cites successful examples of community-based policing.

Download or read book Imagined Communities written by Benedict Anderson and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2006-11-17 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the imagined communities that compel men to kill or to die for an idea of a nation? This notion of nationhood had its origins in the founding of the Americas, but was then adopted and transformed by populist movements in nineteenth-century Europe. It became the rallying cry for anti-Imperialism as well as the abiding explanation for colonialism. In this scintillating, groundbreaking work of intellectual history Anderson explores how ideas are formed and reformulated at every level, from high politics to popular culture, and the way that they can make people do extraordinary things. In the twenty-first century, these debates on the nature of the nation state are even more urgent. As new nations rise, vying for influence, and old empires decline, we must understand who we are as a community in the face of history, and change.