Since the mid-1970s, the ancient view that the determinants of health go well beyond medical care has reemerged in most western democracies. Yet despite nearly two decades of repeated intellectual efforts to redirect health policy away from curative medicine to more fundamental interventions, the task remains largely undone. The purpose of this volume is to ask why, and to suggest answers and evidence about the determinants of population health that may help redirect national health policies.
The book provides a conceptual framework that permits the integration of evidence arising from a diverse range of disciplines. In particular, it highlights observations that have heretofore been difficult to explain within traditional clinical or health-promotion understandings of what makes some populations healthier than others. Individual chapters explore the role of factors as diverse as culture, genetic predisposition, biological pathways, and social and economic environments. Other chapters discuss how to convert this deepened understanding into changes in health policy.
This unusual volume is, in every sense, a collaborative effort, the culmination of several years' interaction among the members of the Population Health Program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (C.I.A.R.). While each chapter has one or more members of this group as designated authors, all chapters reflect the influence of the collaboration, as well as of the distinguished C.I.A.R. colleagues from many disciplines with whom members have interacted since the group's inception in 1987.
Industry Reviews
-The book is collectively written by several members of the Population Health Program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. After many years of interaction, these authors, representing various disciplines (e.g., biological, cultural, social, economic), formulated ideas about both the determinants and measurement of health and the proper role of the health care delivery system... [T]he book focuses on strategies for improving human health both through the development of better evaluation and data systems, and by formulating better health policies while promoting efficient and effective management of the health care delivery system. General; undergraduate through professional.-
--H. S. Pitkow, Choice
-This volume is as much a challenge for political theorists as it is a collection for policy analysts; and it would be a shame if it were only to circulate within the realm of public policy.-
--Katherine Fierlbeck, Canadian Journal of Political Science
-[T]he book synthesizes the literature from many disciplines but presents a paradigm of health that is almost universally accepted in both academic and health policy circles: namely, that health is determined through the interplay of a host of varied factors, with medicine merely one of many potentially useful ones... [T]he book successfully emphasizes the possible contributions to the health of populations of resource reallocations from medical to non-medical activities... [T]he book effectively highlights the trade-offs between medical expenditures and other activities that may enhance health.-
--Peter C. Coyte, The Canadian Journal of Economics
-At the heart of this book lies a fundamental critique of two cornerstones of contemporary health policy: the role of modern medical care in the production of health, and the role of individual -life style choices- in the production of disease... Overall this book is both an invaluable resource for recent developed-country social epidemiology and a stimulating critique of received theories and observations in the social science of health and illness.-
--Constance A. Nathanson, Contemporary Sociology "The book is collectively written by several members of the Population Health Program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. After many years of interaction, these authors, representing various disciplines (e.g., biological, cultural, social, economic), formulated ideas about both the determinants and measurement of health and the proper role of the health care delivery system... [T]he book focuses on strategies for improving human health both through the development of better evaluation and data systems, and by formulating better health policies while promoting efficient and effective management of the health care delivery system. General; undergraduate through professional."
--H. S. Pitkow, Choice
"This volume is as much a challenge for political theorists as it is a collection for policy analysts; and it would be a shame if it were only to circulate within the realm of public policy."
--Katherine Fierlbeck, Canadian Journal of Political Science
"[T]he book synthesizes the literature from many disciplines but presents a paradigm of health that is almost universally accepted in both academic and health policy circles: namely, that health is determined through the interplay of a host of varied factors, with medicine merely one of many potentially useful ones... [T]he book successfully emphasizes the possible contributions to the health of populations of resource reallocations from medical to non-medical activities... [T]he book effectively highlights the trade-offs between medical expenditures and other activities that may enhance health."
--Peter C. Coyte, The Canadian Journal of Economics
"At the heart of this book lies a fundamental critique of two cornerstones of contemporary health policy: the role of modern medical care in the production of health, and the role of individual "life style choices" in the production of disease... Overall this book is both an invaluable resource for recent developed-country social epidemiology and a stimulating critique of received theories and observations in the social science of health and illness."
--Constance A. Nathanson, Contemporary Sociology "The book is collectively written by several members of the Population Health Program of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. After many years of interaction, these authors, representing various disciplines (e.g., biological, cultural, social, economic), formulated ideas about both the determinants and measurement of health and the proper role of the health care delivery system... [T]he book focuses on strategies for improving human health both through the development of better evaluation and data systems, and by formulating better health policies while promoting efficient and effective management of the health care delivery system. General; undergraduate through professional."
--H. S. Pitkow, Choice
"This volume is as much a challenge for political theorists as it is a collection for policy analysts; and it would be a shame if it were only to circulate within the realm of public policy."
--Katherine Fierlbeck, Canadian Journal of Political Science
"[T]he book synthesizes the literature from many disciplines but presents a paradigm of health that is almost universally accepted in both academic and health policy circles: namely, that health is determined through the interplay of a host of varied factors, with medicine merely one of many potentially useful ones... [T]he book successfully emphasizes the possible contributions to the health of populations of resource reallocations from medical to non-medical activities... [T]he book effectively highlights the trade-offs between medical expenditures and other activities that may enhance health."
--Peter C. Coyte, The Canadian Journal of Economics
"At the heart of this book lies a fundamental critique of two cornerstones of contemporary health policy: the role of modern medical care in the production of health, and the role of individual "life style choices" in the production of disease... Overall this book is both an invaluable resource for recent developed-country social epidemiology and a stimulating critique of received theories and observations in the social science of health and illness."
--Constance A. Nathanson, Contemporary Sociology
