Public Health: An Action Guide to Improving Health Locally and Globally (Original PDF from publisher)

Public Health: An Action Guide to Improving Health Locally and Globally (Original PDF from publisher)

by John Walley  John Wright , & 1 more

Building effective health systems is essential for achieving universal health coverage, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. This action guide outlines practical steps within primary health care that help promote public and community health, prevent disease, improve living conditions, and strengthen areas such as water and sanitation, nutrition, immunization, and healthy lifestyle adoption.

Written with a focus on low- and middle-income settings, the book explains key approaches and provides practical methods for developing effective health services and preventive programmes across hospitals, health centres, and community-based services. Special attention is given to maternal, neonatal, and child health. The guide also examines operational, gender-related, social, and economic factors that influence health, offering direction on selecting the most appropriate intervention strategies.

This third edition is fully updated to reflect current knowledge on communicable and non-communicable diseases. It includes new and revised chapters on health systems based on the World Health Organization (WHO) building blocks. Real-world examples, illustrations, and case histories are included to help bring the subject to life.

The book covers essential services and programmes, including those addressing tuberculosis, HIV, malaria, diarrhoeal diseases, and the integrated management of childhood and adult illnesses. Throughout, the editors present key public health skills clearly and comprehensively, such as epidemiology, medicine management, disease control, health financing, and effective implementation of health services and programmes.

This guide ensures that crucial public health information is accessible to doctors, community nurses, managers, and other public health professionals, both in training and in practice.