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AbstractDebates about globalization and health focus almost exclusively on communicable diseases. However, chronic diseases— especially cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes—now constitute the bulk of the global burden of disease. This chapter provides updated information on trends in the major macro-determinants of chronic diseases such as urbanization, globalization, and aging. Further, it summarizes evidence of the impact of known risk factors for chronic diseases such as tobacco, diet/nutrition, physical activity, and alcohol. Reasons for failure to invest in prevention are outlined and the importance of implementing available knowledge about preventive and therapeutic strategies is stressed.

This paper reviews the challenges facing the public health workforce in developing countries and the main policy issues that must be addressed in order to strengthen the public health workforce. The public health workforce is diverse and includes all those whose prime responsibility is the provision of core public health activities, irrespective of their organizational base. Although the public health workforce is central to the performance of health systems, very little is known about its composition, training or performance. The key policy question is: Should governments invest more in building and supporting the public health workforce and infrastructure to ensure the more effective functioning of health systems? Other questions concern: the nature of the public health workforce, including its size, composition, skills, training needs, current functions and performance; the appropriate roles of the workforce; and how the workforce can be strengthened to support new approaches to priority health problems.

In diesem von der Weltgesundheitsorganisation (WHO) herausgegebenen Buch werden die wichtigsten epidemiologischen Konzepte und Methoden erklärt und an Beispielen veranschaulicht: - Masszahlen der Krankheitshäufigkeit - Durchführung und statistische Auswertung epidemiologischer Studien - Konzepte der Krankheitsverursachung - Prävention, übertragbare Krankheiten - Klinische Epidemiologie - Umwelt- und Arbeitsepidemiologie - Public Health und Gesundheitspolitik Das Lehrbuch geht besonders ein auf die Stärken und Schwächen epidemiologischer Studiendesigns und auf die Anwendung epidemiologischer Forschung für Public Health, Gesundheitsförderung und Prävention

Four decades ago, U.S. life expectancy was within the same range as other high-income peer countries. However, during the past decades, the United States has fared worse in many key health domains resulting in shorter life expectancy and poorer health—a health disadvantage. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute convened a panel of national and international health experts and stakeholders for a Think Tank meeting to explore the U.S. health disadvantage and to seek specific recommendations for implementation research opportunities for heart, lung, blood, and sleep disorders. Recommendations for National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute consideration were made in several areas including understanding the drivers of the disadvantage, identifying potential solutions, creating strategic partnerships with common goals, and finally enhancing and fostering a research workforce for implementation research. Key recommendations included exploring why the United States is doing better for health indicators in a few areas compared with peer countries; targeting populations across the entire socioeconomic spectrum with interventions at all levels in order to prevent missing a substantial proportion of the disadvantage; assuring partnership have high-level goals that can create systemic change through collective impact; and finally, increasing opportunities for implementation research training to meet the current needs. Connecting with the research community at large and building on ongoing research efforts will be an important strategy. Broad partnerships and collaboration across the social, political, economic, and private sectors and all civil society will be critical—not only for implementation research but also for implementing the findings to have the desired population impact. Developing the relevant knowledge to tackle the U.S. health disadvantage is the necessary first step to improve U.S. health outcomes.