Community Health across Diverse Cultures

Among developed nations, the United States ranks near the bottom on most standard measures of health status!

In order to understand and solve this health enigma, we need to start by examining personal health practices of Americans.The single greatest opportunity to improve health and reduce premature deaths lies in personal behavior. Health Promotion & Disease Prevention defines mental, social, physical & spiritual health and wellness and presents solutions for optimizing personal health.  In addition, it explores population through studying factors such as genetics, social circumstances, environmental exposures, behavioral patterns, and health care. This book discusses pathways to population health improvement, emphasizing lessons learned from successful public health initiatives . Smoking and obesity are highly prevalent globally, and are major risk factors for chronic disease and death - the publication studies tobacco control as a model for combating obesity.

Readers of Health Promotion & Disease Prevention will be able to answer:

• What makes communities healthy?
• Why have we not focused on improving health in the United States and what it would take to make that happen?
• Why don’t Americans focus on factors that improve health status?
• How can the nation’s health improve?