Community-Oriented Health Services: Practices Across Disciplines - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826198171 ISBN 13: 9780826198174

Publisher: Springer Publishing, 2014

Synopsis

Grounded in a trans-disciplinary approach, this ground-breaking text provides extensive, evidence-based information on the value of communities as the primary drivers of their own health and wellbeing. It describes foundational community health concepts and procedures and presents proven strategies for engaging communities as resources for their own health improvement-an important determinant of individual wellbeing. It is based on recommendations by WHO's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health and on the premise that healthy communities are those with populations that participate in their own health promotion, maintenance, and sustenance. The book is unique in its integration of environmental and social justice issues as they significantly affect the advancement of community health.

The text focuses on community-oriented health interventions informed by prevention, inclusiveness, and timeliness that both promote better health and are more cost effective than individually focused interventions. It addresses the foundations of community-oriented health services including their history, social determinants, concepts, and policies as well as the economics of community-oriented health services and health disparities and equity. It covers procedures for designing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating sustainable community health coalitions along with tools for measuring their success. Detailed case studies describe specific settings and themes in US and international community health practice in which communities are both enactors and beneficiaries.

Each chapter includes learning objectives, discussion boxes, research boxes, and case studies. An accompanying instructor's manual provides learning exercises, field-based experiential assignments, and multiple-choice questions. A valuable resource for students and practitioners of education, public policy, and social services, this book bridges the perspectives of environmental justice, public health, community wellbeing and development, which, while being mutually interdependent, have rarely been considered together.

Key Features:

• Offers a new paradigm for improving public health through community-driven health coalitions
• Includes evidence-based strategies for engaging communities in the pursuit of health
• Demonstrates how to design, implement, monitor, and evaluate community health partnerships
• Presents trans-disciplinary approaches that consider environmental and social justice variables
• Includes contributions of international authors renowned in community health research and practice

About this title

About the Author

Elias Mpofu, PhD, DED, CRC is Professor and Head of the Discipline of Rehabilitation Counselling, University of Sydney, Australia. He is a leading researcher-educator on counselling individuals with disadvantages, vulnerability, and survivorship in diverse community settings. His research focuses on community-oriented health interventions. Dr. Mpofu is the recipient of three international awards in rehabilitation research from the USA National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research (2008), National Council on Rehabilitation Education (NCRE), and the American Rehabilitation Counseling Association Research Award (2007). For his leadership in teaching, Professor Mpofu was awarded the Rehabilitation Educator of the Year Award by the NCRE in 2010. Professor Mpofu is Editor of the Australian Journal of Rehabilitation Counselling and Journal of Psychology in Africa. He also serves on the editorial boards of several rehabilitation counselling-related journals, including Journal of Rehabilitation Administration, Rehabilitation Research, Education and Policy, Rehabilitation Counseling Bulletin, Psychological Assessment, and International Journal of Disability, Development and Education. He is also lead editor of Assessment in Rehabilitation and Health (2010) and Rehabilitation and Health Assessment (Springer Publishing, 2010). Recently he published a seminal edited book on counseling people of African ancestry.

Edition details

• Publisher: Springer Publishing
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0826198171
• ISBN 13: 9780826198174
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384
• Editor: Mpofu Elias