Saving Gotham A Billionaire Mayor Activist Doctors And The Fight For Eight Million Lives

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Saving Gotham: A Billionaire Mayor, Activist Doctors, and the Fight for Eight Million Lives

Author : Tom Farley
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393248801
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (932 download)

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Book Synopsis Saving Gotham: A Billionaire Mayor, Activist Doctors, and the Fight for Eight Million Lives by : Tom Farley

Download or read book Saving Gotham: A Billionaire Mayor, Activist Doctors, and the Fight for Eight Million Lives written by Tom Farley and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inside story of the most audacious public health campaign of the twenty-first century. In 2002, a dynamic doctor named Thomas Frieden became health commissioner of New York City. With support from the new mayor, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, Frieden and his health department team prohibited smoking in bars, outlawed trans fats in restaurants, and attempted to cap the size of sodas, among other groundbreaking actions. The initiatives drew heated criticism, but they worked: by 2011, 450,000 people had quit smoking, childhood obesity rates were falling, and life expectancy was growing. Saving Gotham is the behind-the-scenes story of the most controversial—and successful—public health initiative of our time. Thomas A. Farley, MD, who succeeded Frieden as health commissioner, introduces a team of doctors who accepted the challenge of public health: to care for each of New York City’s eight million inhabitants as their own patients. The biggest threats they faced were not cholera or chemical toxins or lack of medical care but instead habits like smoking and unhealthy eating. As these doctors pressed to solve these problems, they found themselves battling those who encouraged those habits, and they reshaped their own agency for a different sort of fight. Farley shows what happens when science-driven doctors are given the political cover to make society-wide changes to protect people from today’s health risks—and how industries exploit legislatures, the courts, the media, and public opinion to undermine them. With Washington caught in partisan paralysis and New York City’s ideas spreading around the world, Saving Gotham demonstrates how government—local government—can protect its citizens and transform health for everyone.

Saving Gotham

Author : Tom Farley, M.D.
Publisher : National Geographic Books
ISBN 13 : 0393071243
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Saving Gotham by : Tom Farley, M.D.

Download or read book Saving Gotham written by Tom Farley, M.D. and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inside story of the most audacious public health campaign of the twenty-first century. In 2002, a dynamic doctor named Thomas Frieden became health commissioner of New York City. With support from the new mayor, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, Frieden and his health department team prohibited smoking in bars, outlawed trans fats in restaurants, and attempted to cap the size of sodas, among other groundbreaking actions. The initiatives drew heated criticism, but they worked: by 2011, 450,000 people had quit smoking, childhood obesity rates were falling, and life expectancy was growing. Saving Gotham is the behind-the-scenes story of the most controversial—and successful—public health initiative of our time. Thomas A. Farley, MD, MPH, who succeeded Frieden as health commissioner, introduces a team of doctors who accepted the challenge of public health: to care for each of New York City’s eight million inhabitants as their own patients. The biggest threats they faced were not cholera or chemical toxins or lack of medical care but instead habits like smoking and unhealthy eating. As these doctors pressed to solve these problems, they found themselves battling those who encouraged those habits, and they reshaped their own agency for a different sort of fight. Farley shows what happens when science-driven doctors are given the political cover to make society-wide changes to protect people from today’s health risks—and how industries exploit legislatures, the courts, the media, and public opinion to undermine them. With Washington caught in partisan paralysis and New York City’s ideas spreading around the world, Saving Gotham demonstrates how government—local government—can protect its citizens and transform health for everyone.

The Many Lives of Michael Bloomberg

Author : Eleanor Randolph
Publisher : Simon & Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1476772215
Total Pages : 496 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (767 download)

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Book Synopsis The Many Lives of Michael Bloomberg by : Eleanor Randolph

Download or read book The Many Lives of Michael Bloomberg written by Eleanor Randolph and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2021-03-16 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This authoritative and anecdote-filled biography of Michael Bloomberg—2020 presidential candidate and one of the richest and famously private/public figures in the country—is a “masterful work…[and] an absolutely first-rate study of leadership in business, politics, and philanthropy” (Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize–winning author) from a veteran New York Times reporter. Michael Bloomberg’s life sounds like an exaggerated version of The American Story, except his adventures are real. From modest Jewish middle class (and Eagle Scout) to Harvard MBA to Salomon Brothers hot shot (where he gets “sent upstairs” and later fired) to creator of the Bloomberg terminal, a machine that would change Wall Street and the financial universe and make him a billionaire, to presidential candidate in 2020, Randolph’s account of Bloomberg’s life reads almost like a novel. “A vivid, timely study of Bloomberg’s brand of plutocracy” (Publishers Weekly), this engaging and insightful biography recounts Mayor Bloomberg’s vigorous approach to New York City’s care—including his attempts at education reform, anti-smoking and anti-obesity campaigns, climate control, and new developments across the city. After he engineered a surprising third term as Mayor, Bloomberg returned to his business and philanthropies that focused increasingly on cities. The chapter that describes this is one of the most revealing of his temperament and energy and vision as well as how he spends his “private” time that was virtually off-limits even when he was mayor. Bloomberg promised to give away his money before he died, and his giving has focused on education, gun control, and a fighting climate change. He joined the 2020 presidential campaign as a moderate liberal and spent his millions focused on ousting President Donald Trump.

Bloomberg

Author : Chris McNickle
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1510722599
Total Pages : 480 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis Bloomberg by : Chris McNickle

Download or read book Bloomberg written by Chris McNickle and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examine the Bipartisan Legacy of a Remarkable Billionaire Politician Bloomberg: A Billionaire’s Ambition tells the story of how one of America’s most successful entrepreneurs was elected mayor of New York City and what he did with the power he won. Bloomberg’s stunning victory against all odds just weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attack left him facing challenges unlike any mayor in history. For the next twelve years, he kept the city safe, managed budgets through fiscal crises, promoted private sector growth, generated jobs, built infrastructure, protected the environment, supported society’s cultural sensibilities, and achieved dramatic improvements in public health. Bloomberg was an activist executive who used government assets boldly and wisely for the greatest good, for the greatest number of people. His time as mayor was not without controversy. Bloomberg supported stop and frisk police tactics that a judge ruled unconstitutional, and jailhouse violence rose to levels so severe the federal government intervened. The administration’s homeless policies were ineffective. And he forced a change in the city charter to allow him to serve a third term. Overall, record low crime and the lasting impact of innovative policies will cause his tenure to be remembered as a remarkable success. Having returned to his global media empire, and to his private philanthropy, Bloomberg continues to challenge the National Rifle Association on gun control, promote national education reform, and support policies to combat climate change. Frequently touted as an independent candidate for president, Bloomberg leaves behind a legacy of effective government.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg

Author : Lynne A. Weikart
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 1501756389
Total Pages : 213 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis Mayor Michael Bloomberg by : Lynne A. Weikart

Download or read book Mayor Michael Bloomberg written by Lynne A. Weikart and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-15 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Lynne A. Weikart dives into the mayoralty of Michael Bloomberg, offering an incisive analysis of Bloomberg's policies during his 2002–2014 tenure as mayor of New York and highlighting his impact on New York City politics. Michael Bloomberg became mayor of New York just four months after the 9/11 terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center and he lead the rebuilding of a physically and emotionally devastated city so well that within two years, the city had budget surpluses. Weikart reveals how state and federal governments constrained Bloomberg's efforts to set municipal policy and implement his strategic goals in the areas of homelessness, low-income housing, poverty, education, and crime. External powers of state and federal governments are strong currents and Bloomberg's navigation of these currents often determined the outcome of his efforts. Weikart evaluates Michael Bloomberg's mayoral successes and failures in the face of various challenges: externally, the constraints of state government, and mandates imposed by federal and state courts; and, internally, the impasse between labor unions and Bloomberg. Weikart identifies and explores both the self-created restrictions of Mayor Bloomberg's own management style and the courage of Mike Bloomberg's leadership.

New York, New York, New York

Author : Thomas Dyja
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1982149795
Total Pages : 544 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (821 download)

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Book Synopsis New York, New York, New York by : Thomas Dyja

Download or read book New York, New York, New York written by Thomas Dyja and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A lively, immersive history by an award-winning urbanist of New York City's transformation, and the lessons it offers for the city's future"--

The Pragmatist

Author : Joseph P. Viteritti
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190679522
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (96 download)

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Book Synopsis The Pragmatist by : Joseph P. Viteritti

Download or read book The Pragmatist written by Joseph P. Viteritti and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-03 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Michael Bloomberg handed over the city to Bill de Blasio, New York and the country were experiencing record levels of income inequality. De Blasio was the first progressive elected to City Hall in twenty years. Invoking Fiorello La Guardia's name, he pledged to improve the lives of those marginalized by poverty and prejudice. Unlike La Guardia, de Blasio did not have allies in Washington like President Franklin D. Roosevelt who could effectively support his progressive agenda. As de Blasio approached the end of his first term, the situation worsened, with Donald Trump in the White House and a Republican-controlled Congress determined to further reduce social programs that help the needy. As a result, de Blasio's mayoralty is an illuminating case study of what mayors can and cannot do on their own to address economic and social inequality. As the Democratic Party attempts to reassemble a viable political coalition that cuts across boundaries of race, class and gender, de Blasio's efforts to redefine priorities in America's largest city is instructive. Joseph P. Viteritti's The Pragmatist is the first in-depth look at de Blasio-both the man himself and his policies in crucial areas such as housing, homelessness, education, and criminal justice. It is a test case for the viability of progressivism itself. Along the way, Viteritti introduces the reader to every NYC mayor since La Guardia. He covers progressives who breathed life into the "soul of the city" before the devastating fiscal crisis of 1975 put it on the brink of bankruptcy, and those post-fiscal crisis chief executives who served during times of limiting austerity. This engaging story of the rise, fall, and rebirth of progressivism in America's major urban center demonstrates that the road to progress has been a long-and continuing-journey.

Roads to Health

Author : G. Geltner
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 0812296311
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (122 download)

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Book Synopsis Roads to Health by : G. Geltner

Download or read book Roads to Health written by G. Geltner and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2019-07-05 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Roads to Health, G. Geltner demonstrates that urban dwellers in medieval Italy had a keen sense of the dangers to their health posed by conditions of overcrowding, shortages of food and clean water, air pollution, and the improper disposal of human and animal waste. He consults scientific, narrative, and normative sources that detailed and consistently denounced the physical and environmental hazards urban communities faced: latrines improperly installed and sewers blocked; animals left to roam free and carcasses left rotting on public byways; and thoroughfares congested by artisanal and commercial activities that impeded circulation, polluted waterways, and raised miasmas. However, as Geltner shows, numerous administrative records also offer ample evidence of the concrete measures cities took to ameliorate unhealthy conditions. Toiling on the frontlines were public functionaries generally known as viarii, or "road-masters," appointed to maintain their community's infrastructures and police pertinent human and animal behavior. Operating on a parallel track were the camparii, or "field-masters," charged with protecting the city's hinterlands and thereby the quality of what would reach urban markets, taverns, ovens, and mills. Roads to Health provides a critical overview of the mandates and activities of the viarii and camparii as enforcers of preventive health and safety policies between roughly 1250 and 1500, and offers three extended case studies, for Lucca, Bologna, and the smaller Piedmont town of Pinerolo. In telling their stories, Geltner contends that preventive health practices, while scientifically informed, emerged neither solely from a centralized regime nor as a reaction to the onset of the Black Death. Instead, they were typically negotiated by diverse stakeholders, including neighborhood residents, officials, artisans, and clergymen, and fostered throughout the centuries by a steady concern for people's greater health.

The Economics of Obesity

Author : Tahereh Alavi Hojjat
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 9811029113
Total Pages : 84 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis The Economics of Obesity by : Tahereh Alavi Hojjat

Download or read book The Economics of Obesity written by Tahereh Alavi Hojjat and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-02-22 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Providing a fascinating insight into the factors that influence individual choices regarding eating habits, diet and other behavioral patterns relevant to obesity, this book offers a new perspective about the relationship of obesity to poverty and inequality. The authors explore a unique socioeconomic model that helps build the framework to understand the causes of obesity and its relation to health, science, and economics. An essential read for policy makers who are seeking a framework to address this problem.

Political Exercise

Author : Lawrence D. Brown
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231553447
Total Pages : 143 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis Political Exercise by : Lawrence D. Brown

Download or read book Political Exercise written by Lawrence D. Brown and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The public health benefits of giving city dwellers increased opportunities to lead physically active lifestyles are well known to urban planners, public health scholars, and government officials. Moreover, increases in “active living,” such as walking and cycling, help the environment, support local businesses, and reduce traffic congestion, among other advantages. But despite wide agreement that active living is both achievable and valuable, best practices are not easy to implement. In Political Exercise, Lawrence D. Brown presents five case studies of cities that have promoted active living with varying success through a range of approaches. He shows how and why the transformation of a call for public intervention into projects, programs, and policies is inescapably political. Brown argues that in order to implement policies that support active living, their proponents must give communities a sense of ownership of recommended changes in the built environment, filter the public health agenda through a range of public and private organizations, and secure committed political champions. At the intersection of public health and urban planning, Political Exercise offers a framework for scholars, policy makers, and reformers to more productively address both the rationales behind active living and the political strategies that spur change.

Soda Politics

Author : Marion Nestle
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190263458
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (92 download)

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Book Synopsis Soda Politics by : Marion Nestle

Download or read book Soda Politics written by Marion Nestle and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-07 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sodas are astonishing products. Little more than flavored sugar-water, these drinks cost practically nothing to produce or buy, yet have turned their makers--principally Coca-Cola and PepsiCo--into a multibillion-dollar industry with global recognition, distribution, and political power. Billed as "refreshing," "tasty," "crisp," and "the real thing," sodas also happen to be so well established to contribute to poor dental hygiene, higher calorie intake, obesity, and type-2 diabetes that the first line of defense against any of these conditions is to simply stop drinking them. Habitually drinking large volumes of soda not only harms individual health, but also burdens societies with runaway healthcare costs. So how did products containing absurdly inexpensive ingredients become multibillion dollar industries and international brand icons, while also having a devastating impact on public health? In Soda Politics, the 2016 James Beard Award for Writing & Literature Winner, Dr. Marion Nestle answers this question by detailing all of the ways that the soft drink industry works overtime to make drinking soda as common and accepted as drinking water, for adults and children. Dr. Nestle, a renowned food and nutrition policy expert and public health advocate, shows how sodas are principally miracles of advertising; Coca-Cola and PepsiCo spend billions of dollars each year to promote their sale to children, minorities, and low-income populations, in developing as well as industrialized nations. And once they have stimulated that demand, they leave no stone unturned to protect profits. That includes lobbying to prevent any measures that would discourage soda sales, strategically donating money to health organizations and researchers who can make the science about sodas appear confusing, and engaging in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities to create goodwill and silence critics. Soda Politics follows the money trail wherever it leads, revealing how hard Big Soda works to sell as much of their products as possible to an increasingly obese world. But Soda Politics does more than just diagnose a problem--it encourages readers to help find solutions. From Berkeley to Mexico City and beyond, advocates are successfully countering the relentless marketing, promotion, and political protection of sugary drinks. And their actions are having an impact--for all of the hardball and softball tactics the soft drink industry employs to maintain the status quo, soda consumption has been flat or falling for years. Health advocacy campaigns are now the single greatest threat to soda companies' profits. Soda Politics provides readers with the tools they need to keep up pressure on Big Soda in order to build healthier and more sustainable food systems.

The Plant Hunter

Author : Cassandra Leah Quave
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1984879138
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (848 download)

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Book Synopsis The Plant Hunter by : Cassandra Leah Quave

Download or read book The Plant Hunter written by Cassandra Leah Quave and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-06-14 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The uplifting, adventure-filled memoir of one groundbreaking scientist’s quest to develop new ways to fight illness and disease through the healing powers of plants. “A fascinating and deeply personal journey.” —Amy Stewart, author of Wicked Plants and The Drunken Botanist Traveling by canoe, ATV, mule, airboat, and on foot, Dr. Cassandra Quave has conducted field research everywhere from the flooded forests of the remote Amazon to the isolated mountaintops in Albania and Kosovo—all in search of natural compounds, long-known to traditional healers, that could help save us all from the looming crisis of untreatable superbugs. Dr. Quave is a leading medical ethnobotanist—someone who identifies and studies plants that may be able to treat antimicrobial resistance and other threatening illnesses—helping to provide clues for the next generation of advanced medicines. And as a person born with multiple congenital defects of her skeletal system, she's done it all with just one leg. In The Plant Hunter, Dr. Quave weaves together science, botany, and memoir to tell us the extraordinary story of her own journey.

Global Corruption Report: Sport

Author : Transparency International
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317443756
Total Pages : 399 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (174 download)

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Book Synopsis Global Corruption Report: Sport by : Transparency International

Download or read book Global Corruption Report: Sport written by Transparency International and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-05 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sport is a global phenomenon engaging billions of people and generating annual revenues of more than US$ 145 billion. Problems in the governance of sports organisations, fixing of matches and staging of major sporting events have spurred action on many fronts. Yet attempts to stop corruption in sport are still at an early stage. The Global Corruption Report (GCR) on sport is the most comprehensive analysis of sports corruption to date. It consists of more than 60 contributions from leading experts in the fields of corruption and sport, from sports organisations, governments, multilateral institutions, sponsors, athletes, supporters, academia and the wider anti-corruption movement. This GCR provides essential analysis for understanding the corruption risks in sport, focusing on sports governance, the business of sport, planning of major events, and match-fixing. It highlights the significant work that has already been done and presents new approaches to strengthening integrity in sport. In addition to measuring transparency and accountability, the GCR gives priority to participation, from sponsors to athletes to supporters an essential to restoring trust in sport.

The Utopia of Rules

Author : David Graeber
Publisher : Melville House
ISBN 13 : 1612193757
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (121 download)

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Book Synopsis The Utopia of Rules by : David Graeber

Download or read book The Utopia of Rules written by David Graeber and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2015-02-24 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the international bestseller Debt: The First 5,000 Years comes a revelatory account of the way bureaucracy rules our lives Where does the desire for endless rules, regulations, and bureaucracy come from? How did we come to spend so much of our time filling out forms? And is it really a cipher for state violence? To answer these questions, the anthropologist David Graeber—one of our most important and provocative thinkers—traces the peculiar and unexpected ways we relate to bureaucracy today, and reveals how it shapes our lives in ways we may not even notice…though he also suggests that there may be something perversely appealing—even romantic—about bureaucracy. Leaping from the ascendance of right-wing economics to the hidden meanings behind Sherlock Holmes and Batman, The Utopia of Rules is at once a powerful work of social theory in the tradition of Foucault and Marx, and an entertaining reckoning with popular culture that calls to mind Slavoj Zizek at his most accessible. An essential book for our times, The Utopia of Rules is sure to start a million conversations about the institutions that rule over us—and the better, freer world we should, perhaps, begin to imagine for ourselves.

David and Goliath

Author : Malcolm Gladwell
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0241959608
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (419 download)

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Book Synopsis David and Goliath by : Malcolm Gladwell

Download or read book David and Goliath written by Malcolm Gladwell and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-10-03 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do underdogs succeed so much more than we expect? How do the weak outsmart the strong? In David and Goliath Malcolm Gladwell, no.1 bestselling author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers and What the Dog Saw, takes us on a scintillating and surprising journey through the hidden dynamics that shape the balance of power between the small and the mighty. From the conflicts in Northern Ireland, through the tactics of civil rights leaders and the problem of privilege, Gladwell demonstrates how we misunderstand the true meaning of advantage and disadvantage. When does a traumatic childhood work in someone's favour? How can a disability leave someone better off? And do you really want your child to go to the best school he or she can get into? David and Goliath draws on the stories of remarkable underdogs, history, science, psychology and on Malcolm Gladwell's unparalleled ability to make the connections others miss. It's a brilliant, illuminating book that overturns conventional thinking about power and advantage. 'A global phenomenon... there is, it seems, no subject over which he cannot scatter some magic dust' Observer

Roads to Health

Author : G. Geltner
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN 13 : 0812251350
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (122 download)

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Book Synopsis Roads to Health by : G. Geltner

Download or read book Roads to Health written by G. Geltner and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2019-08-02 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Roads to Health, G. Geltner demonstrates that urban dwellers in medieval Italy had a keen sense of the dangers to their health posed by conditions of overcrowding, shortages of food and clean water, air pollution, and the improper disposal of human and animal waste. He consults scientific, narrative, and normative sources that detailed and consistently denounced the physical and environmental hazards urban communities faced: latrines improperly installed and sewers blocked; animals left to roam free and carcasses left rotting on public byways; and thoroughfares congested by artisanal and commercial activities that impeded circulation, polluted waterways, and raised miasmas. However, as Geltner shows, numerous administrative records also offer ample evidence of the concrete measures cities took to ameliorate unhealthy conditions. Toiling on the frontlines were public functionaries generally known as viarii, or "road-masters," appointed to maintain their community's infrastructures and police pertinent human and animal behavior. Operating on a parallel track were the camparii, or "field-masters," charged with protecting the city's hinterlands and thereby the quality of what would reach urban markets, taverns, ovens, and mills. Roads to Health provides a critical overview of the mandates and activities of the viarii and camparii as enforcers of preventive health and safety policies between roughly 1250 and 1500, and offers three extended case studies, for Lucca, Bologna, and the smaller Piedmont town of Pinerolo. In telling their stories, Geltner contends that preventive health practices, while scientifically informed, emerged neither solely from a centralized regime nor as a reaction to the onset of the Black Death. Instead, they were typically negotiated by diverse stakeholders, including neighborhood residents, officials, artisans, and clergymen, and fostered throughout the centuries by a steady concern for people's greater health.

Prescription for a Healthy Nation

Author : Tom Farley, M.D.
Publisher : Beacon Press
ISBN 13 : 0807097241
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (7 download)

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Book Synopsis Prescription for a Healthy Nation by : Tom Farley, M.D.

Download or read book Prescription for a Healthy Nation written by Tom Farley, M.D. and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2005-05-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America spends more than twice as much for health care as any other nation. So why are Americans among the sickest people in the industrialized world? Public health experts Tom Farley and Deborah A. Cohen show that the answer does not lie in our medical care system but rather in the world around us. As they explain, the leading killers of our time fall almost entirely into two categories: injuries and chronic diseases such as heart disease, lung and breast cancer, diabetes, and stroke. For all its inspiring, high-tech cures, modern medicine is just not very effective at combating these illnesses. Our health, as Farley and Cohen explain, depends much less on medicine than on how we lead our lives. And as their surprising and illuminating examples show, our behavior and our health are in fact shaped by our everyday world-from the design of our cities to the rules that govern our organizations. Obesity, for example, has emerged as a major health threat because our environment makes it difficult to be physically active and because prepared high-calorie foods-from chips and candy bars to fast food and "food on the go"-saturate our surroundings. Though we'd like to believe that we could stay slim through individual self-discipline, our everyday world overwhelms our resolve. In similar ways, the world around us influences whether we live our lives in ways that increase or decrease our chances of dying from killers as wide-ranging as cancer and car crashes. In the last part of the book, Farley and Cohen remind us of once-controversial changes to our physical environment that have saved tens of thousands of lives and outline many other ways in which we can change our daily environment so we can all live longer and healthier. Prescription for a Healthy Nation is at once an exposé of how various industries influence our health for the worse, a paradigm-shifting argument about health and disease, and a positive blueprint for how to create a healthier society.