Anna Davies

Jane Dixon

Cathy Banwell

Dorothy Broom

Over a half of adults in the US, Canada, Australia and numerous European countries are now overweight or obese, a proportion that has risen sharply in the past two decades. Dominant biomedical explanations focus on the energy equation – an imbalance between energy intake and expenditure - and remedies focus on motivating individuals to restore the balance by eating better and being more active, or – in extreme cases – surgical intervention. This book offers a perspective that sees increasing obesity as a social phenomenon as well as a public health problem. It contains detailed accounts of three generations of Australians’ experiences of changing environments and the emergence of social trends such as increasing availability of convenience foods, the individualisation and commercialisation of leisure, car reliance, and busyness. Participants' narratives are interwoven with sociological and historical analyses of changes to show how contemporary Australians are experiencing and adapting to dramatic socio-cultural and environmental changes that are reshaping their lives and, in many cases, their bodies. The book demonstrates that obesity is an unintended consequence of economic development accompanied by profound socio-cultural changes, and by identifying the key developments the authors propose leverage points. While the research was conducted in Australia, the fundamental drivers of rapid weight gain are equally present in other modern, secular societies.

An Intergenerational Study of the Rise of Obesity

Weight of Modernity

Stanley Ulijaszek

Bringing the hard-to-quantify aspects of lived experience to analysis, and emphasizing what might be lost in interventions if cultural insights are absent, this book includes case studies from across the Asia and Pacific regions –Bangladesh, Malaysia, New Guinea, Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Tuvalu and the Cook Islands. When Culture Impacts Health offers conceptual, methodological and practical insights into understanding and successfully mediating cultural influences to address old and new public health issues including safe water delivery, leprosy, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and body image. It contains useful methodological tools – how to map cultural consensus, measure wealth capital, conduct a cultural economy audit, for example. It provides approaches for discerning between ethnic and racial constructs and for conducting research among indigenous peoples. The book will be indispensible for culture and health researchers in all regions. Discusses global application of case descriptions Demonstrates how a cultural approach to health research enriches and informs our understanding of intractable public health problems Covers methods and measurements applicable to a variety of cultural research approaches as well as actual research results Case studies include medical anthropology, cultural epidemiology, cultural history and social medicine perspectives

Global Lessons for Effective Health Research

When Culture Impacts Health

David Newby

Michael Boarder

Tyra Zetterström

Phyllis Navti

Pharmacology for Pharmacy and the Health Sciences introduces pharmacology in a way that is tailored to the needs of pharmacy and health care students. It provides an understanding of drug action at the cellular and molecular level, which is interfaced seamlessly with an explanation of the clinical use of drugs to treat common conditions. Taking a novel patient-centred approach, the book features a series of embedded workbooks which explore clinical topics in the context of individual patients and their experience of illness, and so relate the scientific basis of pharmacology to real-life pharmacy practice. The workbooks help you to interpret presenting symptoms, hospital clinical clerking, and patient history notes, and to understand the therapeutic strategy and clinical outcome, all within a simple reader-friendly format. Pharmacology for Pharmacy and the Health Sciences is the perfect course companion for anyone needing to develop a solid understanding of pharmacology and its impact on pharmacy and clinical practice. Online Resource Centre The Online Resource Centre to accompany Pharmacology for Pharmacy and the Health Sciences features: For registered adopters: - Figures from the book, available to download - PDF versions of all workbooks appearing in the text - Suggested answers to questions posed within the workbooks

A Patient-Centred Approach

Pharmacology for Pharmacy and the Health Sciences

Colin D. Butler

Anthony G. Capon

This book has three main goals. The first is to celebrate the work of a great public health figure, the late A.J. (Tony) McMichael (1942–2014). The second is to position contemporary public health issues in an interdisciplinary context and in ways that highlight the interdependency between the environment, human institutions and behaviours; a broad approach championed by Tony. The third is to encourage emerging and future public health leaders to advocate for policies and cultural change to sustain and improve human health, from a foundation of objective scholarship. The book’s foreword and 38 chapters were written by people who were inspired by Tony; many of whom worked with him at some point in the last 40 years. Its structure reflects five major public health domains, each of which Tony made major contributions to in an extremely productive academic life: occupational health and safety; environmental and social epidemiology; nutrition and food systems; climate change and health; and ecosystem change and infectious disease. The final section, ‘Transformation’, is dedicated to Tony’s desire for public health scientists to propose adaptive and mitigating solutions to the problems they were observing. Each section contains at least one key publication involving Tony. There is also a selection of artworks from an exhibition which formed part of the conference held to honour Tony at The Australian National University in 2012. This conference formed the first part of Tony’s festschrift, completed by this book.

Reflections based on Tony McMichael’s four decades of contribution to epidemiological understanding

Health of People, Places and Planet

Jane Dixon

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