Reinventing Public Health or Liberty and Power

Reinventing Public Health: Policies and Practices for a Healthy Nation

Author: Lu Ann Aday

Reinventing Public Health offers guidance for translating the growing body of research on the fundamental social, economic, and ecological determinants of health into innovative programs and policies to improve the health of populations.

Doody Review Services

Reviewer: Ross M. Mullner, PhD, MPH (University of Illinois at Chicago)
Description: This book reconceptualizes the field of public health. It presents a bold new public policy orientation to improve the health of the population of the United States, and to reduce the nation's health disparities. The book also discusses the initiatives taken by several other nations, particularly Canada, to redress social inequities.
Purpose: According to the editor: "The book introduces a framework for identifying, arraying, and evaluating the evidence regarding the fundamental social, economic, and ecological determinants of population health and health disparities; explores the role of related development policies in influencing these fundamental determinants; and suggests alternative models of more health-centered policy and program design incorporating a consideration of the fundamental determinants of health."
Audience: This book is written for graduate students in public health, public policy, medical sociology, and political science. The editor, Lu Ann Aday, is a nationally known, highly respected professor and scholar from the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston.
Features: The book consists of seven chapters. Each of the chapters is well crafted and flows nicely into the next with little overlap. A large name and subject index concludes the book.
Assessment: This is a very refreshing new look at public health. Unlike many textbooks in public health which basically repeat what has been said many times before, this book looks at public health from a new and original perspective. It is well organized, well written, and well researched. I highly recommend it!

Rating

4 Stars! from Doody

Table of Contents:

1	Analytic framework	1
2	Fundamental determinants of population health	35
3	Sustainable development	65
4	Human development	106
5	Economic development	183
6	Community development and public health	237
7	Toward a healthy (re)public	285

See also: Chicago or Once in a Lifetime Trips

Liberty and Power: A Dialogue on Religion and U. S. Foreign Policy in an Unjust World

Author: J Bryan Hehir

What role should religion play in shaping and implementing U.S. foreign policy?

The dominant attitude over the last half century on the subject of religion and international relations was expressed well by Dean Acheson, Harry Truman's secretary of state: "Moral Talk was fine preaching for the Final Day of Judgment, but it was not a view I would entertain as a public servant." Was Acheson right?

How a nation "commits itself to freedom" has long been at the heart of debates about foreign aid, economic sanctions, and military intervention. Moral and faith traditions have much to say about what is required to achieve this end. And after September 11, no one can doubt the importance of religious beliefs in influencing relations among peoples and nations.

The contributors to this volume come at the issue from very different perspectives and offer exceptional and unexpected insights on a question now at the forefront of American foreign policy.

Author Description:
J. Bryan Hehir is the Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Religion and Public Life at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and was formerly the president and CEO of Catholic Charities U.S.A.

Michael Walzer is a leading American political theorist and a professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J. He is the author of several books, including Just and Unjust Wars.

Louise Richardson serves as the executive dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and is an expert in international terrorism and defense policy.

Shibley Telhami is Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland and a non-resident senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of numerous books, including the national bestseller The Stakes (Westview).

Charles Krauthammer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist at the Washington Post. He contributes frequently to Time Magazine, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, and The National Interest.

James M. Lindsay is vice president and director of studies of the Council on Foreign Relations, where he holds the Maurice R. Greenberg Chair. He was previously deputy director and senior fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. His books include Agenda for the Nation (Brookings 2003) and Defending America: The Case for Limited National Missile Defense (Brookings 2001). In 1996-97, Lindsay was director for global issues and multilateral affairs on the National Security Council staff.