Donaldsons' Essential Public Health has been in continuous print for
35 years, evolving through successive editions. This unrivalled record
of success for a textbook of public health shows the enduring appeal of
its content, style, and accessibility to generations of students and
practitioners. For many of today's national and global public health
leaders, the book was their guide as they began their careers, their
benchmark as they passed their examinations and professional
accreditation, and remains their companion as a source of reference and
refreshed knowledge for teaching and practice.
The book brings together, in one volume, the main health problems
experienced by populations and by the key groups within them, the
strategies for promoting health and preventing disease, the principles
and applications of epidemiology, the main themes of health policy, and
a description of health service provision.
This fourth edition marks the biggest change to the book in 20 years.
For the first time it sets each key subject area in a global health
context, whilst retaining its traditional strength in covering
population health for the United Kingdom. New and revised chapters for
this edition include:
- Health in a changing world
- Communicable diseases
- Non-communicable diseases
- Social determinants of health
- Quality and safety of healthcare
- Mental health
- Disability
- Health in later life
- Environment and health
- History of public health
The content is wide-ranging and written in an accessible and engaging
style. It covers topics as diverse as: the story of the 2014 Ebola virus
outbreak in West Africa; the elements of tobacco control policy; the
health impact of climate change; the global health organisational
architecture; the concept of health; the new paradigm of public mental
health; the biological pathways that link to the health effects of
social deprivation; the ideal of universal health coverage; the
essentials of immunisation; the basis of healthy ageing; the historical
events that led to the germ theory of disease and the Victorian sanitary
revolution.
This new edition is essential reading for all undergraduate and
postgraduate students of public health, medicine, nursing, health
policy, social science, and public sector management. Those embarking on
a career in public health will find it of great value throughout their
professional life. The book is also an extremely useful resource for
established practitioners in primary care, doctors, senior nurses,
health system managers, healthcare policy makers, civil servants in
ministries of health, and members of boards of health organisations.
