Ref: Meena G.S.  Annual Review Of Public Health, VOLUME 19, 1998 (Book Review).  Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Book Reviews, 2003; Vol. 2, No. 2 (July - December 2003): ; Published January 28, 2003, (Accessed: 

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Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Book Reviews

Volume 2, Number 2, July - December 2003

Technical Books Section

(Page 1)

A VERY USEFUL REFERENCE BOOK ...The book is lucid, very informative, interesting, and easy to understand as it is written in simple format. It has many tables and diagrams. ARPH is a very useful reference book for public health professionals, policy/decision makers and for those pursuing higher studies in Community Medicine or Public Health...

 Annual Review Of Public Health, VOLUME 19, 1998  by Jonathan E. Fielding, University of California at Los Angeles (Editor), Lester B. Lave, Carnegie Mellon University (Associate Editor), Barbara Starfield, Johns Hopkins University (Associate Editor), hard cover, 6"x9"
Annual Reviews, 4139 El Camino Way, P.O. BOX 10139, Palo Alto, California, USA : x+572 Pages: Publication Date: 1998: ISSN 0163-7525: ISBN 0-8243-2719-5: Price $67.00 (individuals), $155.00 (Institutions)

Figure 1: Lester Breslow (this figure appears opposite page 1 of this book)

The ARPH being published by Annual Reviews a non-profit scientific publisher is for promotion of advancements in sciences. They started with Annual Review of Biochemistry in 1932. Other than ARPH there are Annual Reviews in many branches of science and medical science like Anthropology, Biochemistry, Biomedical Engineering, Cell & Developmental Biology, Entomology, Immunology, Medicine, Neuroscience, Nutrition, Political science, Psychology, and Sociology to name some.

This hardbound reference annual book is printed on slightly off white pages for permanence of paper as per requirements of American National Standards for Information Sciences for Printed Library Materials.

The Contents of ARPH Vol. 19, 1998 are in five major headings: (i) Epidemiology and Biostatistics (ii) Environmental and Occupational Health (iii) Public Health Practice (iv) Behaviour and (v) Health Services. There are 24 sub topics contributed by 55 eminent authors. There is also a Mini-Symposium on Managed Care.

One should learn from others having enormous experiences and standing in the subject in this regard, the prefatory article Musings on sixty years in Public Health by Lester Breslow (seen on right here) of School of public health, University of California at Los Angeles is an inspirational article. This article gives his experiences and observations in the public health since 1937, a must read article as there are some lessons to be learnt for public health professionals from his personal experiences and observations in the field for over sixty years.

A mini-symposium on managed care edited by Deborah Freund and Merwyn Greenlick, has five sub topics giving overall concepts of managed care viz. definition, evolution, potential problems, future directions, and partnership of Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) and Public Health. It also reviews several articles on important aspects of managed care like, contractual issues, quality of care and delivery issues, these are of great interest to public health professionals.

...The geographical variation of female breast cancer rates in US is reviewed in "Environmental risk factors and female breast cancer". The article tries to evaluate the role of four pollutants i.e. organochlorines, ionizing radiation, electromagnetic radiation, and passive smoking in female breast cancer...

The beta-carotene in early 80s was viewed as cancer preventing and antioxidant, recent studies and the status of beta-carotene is reviewed by Gilbert S. Omen, Ex. Editor of ARPH in Chemoprevention of Lung Cancer: the Rise and Demise of Beta-Carotene, which is an excellent, comprehensive, and worth reading article. This article questions beta-carotene's role as antioxidant and in cancer prevention. The role of beta-carotene in smokers, former smokers, and non-smokers is discussed. Lastly the impact on public health recommendations is given. The geographical variation of female breast cancer rates in US is reviewed in Environmental risk factors and female breast cancer. The article tries to evaluate the role of four pollutants i.e. organochlorines, ionizing radiation, electromagnetic radiation, and passive smoking in female breast cancer. The elements of behaviour change programmes contributing to successful intervention for prevention of skin cancers, barriers to successful behaviour change and future directions are considered in Successful behavioral interventions to prevent cancer: the example of skin cancer. The factors affecting public health in Central and Eastern Europe are reviewed in Public Health in Central and Eastern Europe and the Role of Environmental Pollution tries to find the causes of increased death rate and decrease in life expectancy after dissolution of Soviet Union in 1989.

The Cost Effective Analysis (CEA) is one of the popular methods of economic evaluation in the health sector as it helps in decision making for more health protection at less cost. Evaluating the Cost-Effectiveness of clinical and public health describes the results of over 40 interventions to reduce cancer, coronary heart diseases, injury prevention, and infectious disease preventions intervention, the results are compared based on money spend in $ per QALY(Quality Adjusted Life Year) and LY (Life Year) gained. Econometrics in outcomes research: the use of instrumental variables describes an econometric technique and instrumental variable for estimating the effectiveness of clinical treatments where a controlled trial cannot be done. The application of this technique in Acute Myocardial Infarction in elderly is illustrated.

Figure 2: Alternative disciplinary lenses for factors influencing health outcomes (this figure appears on page 388 of this book)

Community Based Research (CBR) in public health focuses on social structural and physical environmental inequalities through active involvement of community members, organizational representatives, and researchers in all aspects of the research process. The aim is to understand a given phenomenon and to integrate the knowledge gained with action to benefit the community involved. The article Review of community based research: Assessing partner ship Approaches to improve public health provides principles of CBR, rational for its use, methodological issues, and how to conduct effective CBR. Assessment of occupational Exposures in Community-Based Case-Control Studies Reviews the strength & limitations of the methods for assessing occupational exposure. It also outlines the methods to assess the presence and magnitude of differential reporting by cases and control. Implications of the results of community intervention trials reviews and describes results of population level interventions at three settings Communities, Worksites, and Schools. It also describes factors influencing health outcomes (Figure on right) that even a small change at individual level may result in large benefits at the population level.

Youth access to tobacco: policies and politics reviews the history of restrictions on youth access to tobacco, rationale for various components of policies to restrict access. The impact and critical issues of recent expansion of policies are also described. Preventing youth violence: what works Describes evaluation of violence prevention programme. It suggests primary and secondary prevention strategies for violence prevention based on the reviews.

Tick transmitted diseases are recognized as emerging infectious diseases. Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and human ehrlichioses are life threatening but treatable. DH Walker Tick-Transmitted infectious diseases in the united states deals with epidemiology, diagnosis, and prevention of RMS Fever, human monocytotropic and granulocytotropic ehrlichioses, human babesioses, and lyme borreliosis.

Head injuries are leading cause of morbidity and mortality that can be prevented by wearing helmets. The article Prevention of bicycle injuries: Helmets, Education and legislation Reviews a) effectiveness of bicycle helmets, b) evaluation of legislation to increase helmet use, and c) environmental modification. Strategies to reduce driving under the influence of alcohol gives update research on prevention of alcohol related deaths. It also touches upon methodological issues, alcohol control policies, mass communication campaign, and community approaches to prevention.

...Cross references have very thoughtfully been provided to past ARPHs from volume 10 to 19 in the form of two indexes, by cumulative index of contributing authors and by cumulative index of chapter titles, is a great help to the readers...

Cigarette smoking is a burden of any country's health system and treatment of tobacco dependent person is important to health system as smoking leads to development of disease and premature deaths. Tobacco Dependence Treatments: review and prospectus presents the use of Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) and Exposure Reduction Therapy (ERT) as possible alternative treatment strategies.

The article Organizational Diversification in the American Hospitals reviews hospital organizational changes and diversification, besides horizontal and vertical integration design of empirical studies of hospital organizations. Hormone Replacement Therapy, heart diseases, and other considerations presents the meta-analysis of observational studies of estrogen, estrogen plus progestin and heart disease. It evaluates the use of postmenopausal estrogen (HRT) in risk reduction of C.H.D. It also analyses risks and benefits of postmenopausal estrogen therapy for prevention of coronary heart disease.

Cross references have very thoughtfully been provided to past ARPHs from volume 10 to 19 in the form of two indexes, by cumulative index of contributing authors and by cumulative index of chapter titles, is a great help to the readers.

The book is lucid, very informative, interesting, and easy to understand as it is written in simple format. It has many tables and diagrams. ARPH is a very useful reference book for public health professionals, policy/decision makers and for those pursuing higher studies in Community Medicine or Public Health.

-G.S.Meena Dr Gajendra Singh Meena was born on 25th December 1955 at pink city Jaipur in Rajasthan, India. He did his first twelve years of studies at Jaipur and medical graduation as well as post-graduation both from the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi (AIIMSONIAN, 1974 Batch). He has worked at AIIMS in ICMR Project, Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi Dr. S.N. Medical College, Jodhpur, Rajasthan. He has more than seventeen years of UGs & PGs teaching experience as a faculty member in Community Medicine (Preventive and Social Medicine). Presently he is working as Professor in the Department of Community Medicine at Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi, India. He has published ten papers, attended a dozen conferences, and presented papers there. His fields of research interests are prevention and control of communicable diseases and Epidemiology of non-communicable diseases.

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