Health Risk Assessment Books

Health Assessment Online to Accompany Physical Examination and Health Assessment (User Guide, Access Code, and Textbook Package), 4th Edition

Carolyn Jarvis, Kris Robinson, Thom Mansen

List Price: $113.00 By: Saunders Amazon Marketplace: 4 new & used starting at $113.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 26 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

College student 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book does have good layout by using seperate chapters for the different systems and has abnormal findings with pictures in every chapter. But It is not detailed enough. I would sometimes find myself looking for more information because it doesn't go too much farther then describing something briefly. I would like to find a more detailed book but this is the one my nursing class required. And it has no glossary for definition of terms.

Editorial Review:

Health Assessment Online for Jarvis: Physical Examination and Health Assessment, 4th edition, is a cutting-edge collection of supplemental online teaching/learning materials for faculty and students in health assessment or physical exam courses. This library of more than 4,000 electronic assets provides a wealth of online resources to draw from in teaching this highly visual topic in conjunction with Jarvis: Physical Examination and Health Assessment. Online resources are organized by textbook chapter and within each chapter is a listing of assets by type, including thousands of ready-to-use animations, audio clips, glossary terms, images, interactive exercises, lab and diagnostic tests, PowerPoint slides, practice tests, test bank questions, video clips, and WebLinks.

Motivational Interviewing in Health Care: Helping Patients Change Behavior (Applications of Motivational Interviewin)

Stephen Rollnick, William R. Miller, Christopher C. Butler

Amazon Price: $40.50 List Price: $45.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: The Guilford Press Amazon Marketplace: 31 new & used starting at $39.00

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> Clinical Psychology

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Improving Communications in the Health Care encounter 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Most patients feel rushed and not heard in their encounters with health care providers. This clearly written "how to" book provides principles and examples of conversation that can improve the quality of communication around life style change between provider and patient. Listening rather than telling, and guiding rather than directing or preaching are difficult skills for health providers. Giving the patient "a voice and a choice" in making changes in their unhealthy behaviors is essential to successful outcomes. This practical guide to health behavior change has made a difference in my practice when patients give me permimssion to discuss their drinking, smoking, drug use, over eating, fitness and seat belt use with them.

Edward Bernstein, MD
Board Certified in Emergency Medicine and Family Medicine
Professor and Vice Chair for Academic Affairs
Department of Emergency Medicine
Boston University School of Medicine

Editorial Review:

Much of health care today involves helping patients manage conditions whose outcomes can be greatly influenced by lifestyle or behavior change. Written specifically for health care professionals, this concise book presents powerful tools to enhance communication with patients and guide them in making choices to improve their health, from weight loss, exercise, and smoking cessation, to medication adherence and safer sex practices. Engaging dialogues and vignettes bring to life the core skills of motivational interviewing (MI) and show how to incorporate this brief evidence-based approach into any health care setting. Appendices include MI training resources and publications on specific medical conditions.

And the Band Played on: Politics, People, And the AIDS Epidemic

Randy Shilts

Amazon Price: $28.00 List Price: $28.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Topeka Bindery Amazon Marketplace: 6 new & used starting at $3.94

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Subjects -> Medicine -> Diseases -> AIDS & HIV

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 68 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

How the fight against AIDS was initially lost.... 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Even though I've been fortunate to never have had AIDS touch my life, this book still brought home a powerhouse of feelings - shame at seeing how poorly so many of our fellow human beings were treated, anger at the way their suffering was treated as insignificant, grief at how many people have been lost to such an insidious disease and outrage at the way our government - and governmental health agencies - were willing to play politics when peoples lives were at stake.

Randy Shilts creates a moving, troubling narrative that gives "And the Band Played On" more of the feeling of a novel than of a report or documentation of a study. You get to know the people he writes about enough to care about them - and about what happens to them.

In more recent years, there have been some questions raised about his identification of Gaeton Dugas as "Patient Zero," with current thinking that it took a number of different people to bring AIDS to the western world and begin spreading here. Obviously, this is a point that will likely never be entirely resolved, but even if you disagree with Shilts theory, the rest of the book is still very informative and well worth reading.

Editorial Review:

Why was AIDS allowed to spread unchecked during the early 1980s while our most trusted institutions ignored or denied the threat? In this expose of one of the most important issues of our time, the author answers this question - revealing how the federal government put its budgetary concerns ahead of the nation's welfare, how health authorities placed political expediency before public health, and how some scientists valued national prestige more than saving lives.

A Second Opinion: Rescuing America's Health Care

Dr. Arnold Relman

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Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The U.S. healthcare system is failing. It is run like a business, increasingly focused on generating income for insurers and providers rather than providing care for patients. It is supported by investors and private markets seeking to grow revenue and resist regulation, thus contributing to higher costs and lessened public accountability. Meanwhile, forty-six million Americans are without insurance. Health care expenditures are rising at a rate of 7 percent a year, three times the rate of inflation.

Dr. Arnold Relman is one of the most respected physicians and healthcare advocates in our country. This book, based on sixty years' experience in medicine, is a clarion call not just to politicians and patients but to the medical profession to evolve a new structure for healthcare, based on voluntary private contracts between individuals and not-for-profit, multi-specialty groups of physicians. Physicians would be paid mainly by salaries and would submit no bills for their services. All health care facilities would be not-for-profit. The savings from reduced administrative overhead and the elimination of billing fraud would be enormous. Healthcare may be our greatest national problem, but the provocative, sensible arguments in this book will provide a catalyst for change.

Mosby's Guide to Physical Examination

Seidel

List Price: $19.95 By: Mosby-Year Book Amazon Marketplace: 15 new & used starting at $0.35

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Physical Exam 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Very well written book...we are not using it per say , but it is a good reference and the small handbook that goes with it is the best to have on you.

Great Pocket Mosby! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I have this and the large hardcover textbook. This pocket version is great and fits nicely into my coat pocket when I am in clinic. Although it's not as comprehensive as the big Mosby's, it's definitely handy.

what the professor ordered 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book was used for a health assessment course. It is thorough, going through each system and how to systematically assess the patient. It includes information on infants, children, pregnant women and older adults for each system. Many color pictures aid to the assessment.

Excellente! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The book is indeed informational and of good quality. It also has remarkable pictures, illustrations, and various resources available. Good book to have on hand even after school.

Editorial Review:

Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore, MD. A Brandon/Hill Medical List first-purchase selection. Textbook for medical students learning to perform a physical examination. Previous edition: c1995. Full-color illustrations and photographs. Includes a CD-ROM. DNLM: Physical Examination--methods.

Doubt is Their Product: How Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health

David Michaels

Amazon Price: $18.45 List Price: $27.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Oxford University Press, USA Amazon Marketplace: 47 new & used starting at $16.72

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Doubt is our product," a cigarette executive once observed, "since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy."
In this eye-opening expose, David Michaels reveals how the tobacco industry's duplicitous tactics spawned a multimillion dollar industry that is dismantling public health safeguards. Product defense consultants, he argues, have increasingly skewed the scientific literature, manufactured and magnified scientific uncertainty, and influenced policy decisions to the advantage of polluters and the manufacturers of dangerous products. To keep the public confused about the hazards posed by global warming, second-hand smoke, asbestos, lead, plastics, and many other toxic materials, industry executives have hired unscrupulous scientists and lobbyists to dispute scientific evidence about health risks. In doing so, they have not only delayed action on specific hazards, but they have constructed barriers to make it harder for lawmakers, government agencies, and courts to respond to future threats. The Orwellian strategy of dismissing research conducted by the scientific community as "junk science" and elevating science conducted by product defense specialists to "sound science" status also creates confusion about the very nature of scientific inquiry and undermines the public's confidence in science's ability to address public health and environmental concerns Such reckless practices have long existed, but Michaels argues that the Bush administration deepened the dysfunction by virtually handing over regulatory agencies to the very corporate powers whose products and behavior they are charged with overseeing.
In Doubt Is Their Product Michaels proves, beyond a doubt, that our regulatory system has been broken. He offers concrete, workable suggestions for how it can be restored by taking the politics out of science and ensuring that concern for public safety, rather than private profits, guides our regulatory policy.

Total Cure: The Antidote to the Health Care Crisis

Harold S. Luft

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Proposals to reform the health care system typically focus on either increasing private insurance or expanding government-sponsored plans. Guaranteeing that everyone is insured, however, does not create a system with the quality of care patients want, the flexibility clinicians need, and the internal dynamics to continually improve the value of health care.

In Total Cure, Hal Luft presents a comprehensive new proposal, SecureChoice, which does all that while providing affordable health insurance for every American. SecureChoice is a plan that restructures payment for medical care, harnessing the flexibility and responsiveness of the market by aligning the incentives of clinicians, hospitals, and insurers with those of the patient. It uses the accountability of government to ensure transparency, competition, and equity.

SecureChoice has two major components. A universal pool covers the major risks of hospitalization and chronic illness, which account for almost two-thirds of all costs. Everyone would be in the pool, irrespective of employment, income, or health status. The second component emphasizes choice, flexibility, and responsibility. People will be able to choose any physician to serve as their “medical home,” to keep track of their health records, provide much of their care, and suggest referrals. Clinicians will have the information and incentives to continually enhance quality. SecureChoice also facilitates improvements in areas ranging from malpractice to pharmaceuticals and establishes new roles for key stakeholders such as health insurers.

Essentials of Managed Health Care, Fourth Edition

Peter Kongstvedt

List Price: $69.95 By: Aspen Publishers Amazon Marketplace: 13 new & used starting at $28.28

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Excellent Overview of Managed Care 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 15 people found this review helpful.

Excellent, comprehensive primer on the intricacies of managed care. Covers all the major topics, including delivery systems, public and private sector forms of managed care, regulatory and legal issues, medical management, information systems, and operational issues. Thoughtfully done by Dr. Peter R. Kongstvedt and contributors.

Editorial Review:

The fourth edition of this popular textbook provides the basic information needed to learn critical concepts of managed care. Derived from the best-selling Managed Health Care Handbook, Fourth Edition, this text presents basic information on all the critical concepts of managed care; compares myths about managed care to actual facts; progresses from introductory material on the types of managed care organizations to negotiating and contracting, controlling utilization, and using data reports in medical management; illuminates the regulatory landscape, with careful attention to both federal and state law, as well as the legislative environment. Learning objectives open each chapter; useful tables and charts summarize key information at a glance; study questions encourage thoughtful analysis; includes a glossary of terms and common acronyms. Also includes Study Guide.

Cultural Diversity in Health and Illness (7th Edition) (CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN HEALTH & ILLNESS (SPECTOR))

Rachel E. Spector

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Not a good resource for this important area of inquiry 1 out of 5 stars.
44 of 49 people found this review helpful.

This review updated by author on March 21, 2006:

I recently (Spring 2005) used this text in an undergraduate health professions course titled "Diversity in Health and Illness". The author addresses a broad scope of cultures, issues and responses to cultural needs in health care. Although the book contains much that is useful, my students found it to be, on balance, confusing and disorganized.

I believe much of this response can be attributed to poor editing. We identified numerous spelling and grammar errors throughout. Poorly edited content is also evident in several chapters. Example: "...this chapter has introduced the dominant culture's perception of health and illness through countless lenses" (pp. 67). Similarly, "...countless letters are displayed attesting to the healing powers of this statue" (pp. 106). Isn't there a more accurate word to use in place of `countless'? More importantly, ethnic and race labels are not used consistently. "Hispanic" and "Latino" are used as though they are strictly interchangeable; ditto for "Black" and "African American." Term consistency would enhance clarity.

My concerns with the text are more fundamental and numerous but I will limit myself to a few examples:

USE OF SOURCE DATA AND REFERENCE MATERIALS
Although the text is heavily laden with descriptive statistics, comparative data is often not included, thus limiting interpretations. For example, the discussion of rising expenditures for unconventional therapies in the U.S. (pp. 96) includes expenditure estimates for 1990 and 1997. Without companion statistics for conventional therapy expenditures, readers are unable to asses the magnitude of the trend. Similarly, the description of the African American population as young (54.4% are under 18 - pp. 233) is not very enlightening in the absence of corresponding percentages for the white population and the overall American population. Figure 10-3 adds little additional information.

References for culture group descriptions are often either very old (1950's - 1970's), not the definitive works, or are not sufficiently academic (encyclopedias and web pages), and should be replaced with citations for newer research reported in more rigorous formats. Several important sections contain insufficient or no reference citations. The "Health/HEALTH Care Choices" section (pp. 85) contains numerous historical claims but only a single reference to the American Heritage Dictionary.

OUT OF DATE THEORIES
Some of the sociological and anthropological concepts presented do not represent current theoretical stances. I was especially interested in exploring citations for the "Cycle of Poverty" discussion in Chapter 2, as this blame-the-victim concept has fallen out of favor in sociological circles because it ignores structural realities that are beyond the control of individuals. This conflation of structural problems with cultural phenomena inadvertently creates a situation where the subtle racist beliefs we all learn through our socialization is reinforced in the classroom. Sadly, the only citation provided in this section, (Spector 1979, pp. 148-152), refers to an earlier edition of this book. Original references should be provided.

The Chapter 3 discussion of the sick role is limited to functionalist models presented by Talcott Parsons (1966) and Edward Suchman (1965). As our society ages we are experiencing increasing levels of chronic illness and more patients cannot expect to fully recover. More recent examinations of the illness experience would be appropriate.

CULTURAL MISUNDERSTANDINGS
The discussion of historical background for Native American cultures (pp. 186-188) is particularly dismal. While somewhat correct in broad outlines, the text reads like a less-than-distinguished freshman research paper, and includes various repeats. The discussion of traditional health beliefs and practices is limited to those of the Navajo and Hopi - important southwestern groups - but not representative of all Native Americans. Sources cited are limited to a few 1960's and 1970's references. Strains of the Noble Savage are also evident, particularly with reference to the discussion of "True Indian love" and domestic violence (pp. 200).

The role of voodoo in African American traditions is somewhat overstated (Chapter 10), and is presented as an explanation for present-day underutilization of the allopathic system (pp. 239). At the same time, more realistic explanations are omitted. Chief among those are the disproportionate poverty experienced by the community as well as recent and historical sources of distrust between the African Americans and the largely white medical establishment (e.g., antebellum forced medical experimentation, Tuskegee Experiment, Holmesburg Prison Experiments).

INTERPRETATIONS
My graduate degree is in anthropology, and although I expected some level of disconnect between my training and the nursing orientation of Spector, I found myself admonishing my students several times over to ignore specific passages and sections in this text as irrelevant or just plain wrong.

For example, in the section titled "Cultural Phenomena Affecting Health", in Chapter 1, subheadings include "Biological Variations" and "Social Organization". Confusion between biology and culture appears in other places as well, and was especially troublesome for my students with their limited previous exposure to the concept of culture.

The "Social Organization" subheading precedes a disjointed (but brief) discussion of childhood socialization, family organization, and barriers to health care access. Perhaps the first two could be combined in a section "Socialization". Regarding the barriers to health care access (e.g., unemployment, poverty and lack of health insurance), these could be better characterized as economic barriers rather than social barriers. Diminished economic resources are correlated to large extent with particular demographic groups, but one should avoid essentializing the availability of resources as a series of ethnic or cultural traits. Conceptualizing these issues as cultural phenomena obscures the contributions of racism, xenophobia, and unequal distribution of wealth to the problems of unequal access. Spector draws these categories from a previously published article, and the uncritical use of other people's published materials is apparent throughout the book.

Spector's background is nursing, and on balance, I am not sure that this provides one with the appropriate skills necessary to summarize the fundamentals of culture and cultural diversity. Theorising culture and society is (and should remain) the domain of anthropologists and sociologists (and perhaps psychologists). Like nursing and most other applied and academic fields of inquiry, understanding culture requires a great deal of specialized education.

On my initial reading I suspected a functionalist interpretation of the intersection between health care and culture, but on further examination this book is more like an online encyclopedia where everything (including the kitchen sink) is thrown in. What is missing is a critical evaluation of the usefulness and theoretical implications of others' data and interpretations. The result is conflicting content and a great deal of confusion.

A final example: Spector rejects the WHO health definition but does not suggest a better alternative. Instead she seems to think that health is indefinable: "I would define health as an undefined term" (pp. 50). I agree that students should maintain an open mind, but perhaps a series of limited definitions addressing a variety of situations would be more useful in the classroom. Social science practitioners and researchers struggle with variability in human behavior as a matter of course, but that struggle is mitigated through a realization that definitions are often necessary heuristic devices rather than complete summaries. Put simply, if we can't know a thing, aren't we just wasting our time?

I have reviewed a number of alternate texts over the past year and have found the problems discussed here to be present in several other texts. Perhaps the academic pursuit of cultural care is still in its nascent stage.

In any case, I have found "Culture in Rehabilitation: from Competency to Proficiency" edited by Royeen and Crabtree (Pearson 2006) to be a much better text for my class. The authors represent a variety of health professions and the text was reviewed by a similarly diverse panel of ten. Most of the contributions present robust bibliographies, rely on up-to-date social science research, and avoid the culture-as-checklist approach. I will review the text in detail sometime in May 2006.

Editorial Review:

The seventh edition of this well-respected book continues to promote an awareness of the dimensions and complexities involved in caring for people from diverse cultural backgrounds. Completely revised and updated, it examines the differences existing within North America by probing the health care system and consumers, and examples of traditional health beliefs and practices among selected populations. An emphasis on the influences of recent social, political, and demographic changes helps to explore the issues and perceptions of health and illness today. An essential for any health-care professional, this book sets the standard for cultural perspectives.

Health Measurement Scales: A practical guide to their development and use

David L Streiner, Geoffrey R Norman

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Clinicians and those in health sciences are frequently called upon to measure subjective states such as attitudes, feelings, quality of life, educational achievement and aptitude, and learning style in their patients. This fourth edition of Health Measurement Scales enables these groups who often have limited knowledge of statistics, to both develop scales to measure non-tangible health outcomes, and better evaluate and differentiate between existing tools.
It covers how the individual items are developed; various biases that can affect responses (eg social desirability, yea-saying, framing); various response options; how to select the best items in the set; how to combine them into a scale; and then how to determine the reliability and validity of the scale. It concludes with a discussion of ethical issues that may be encountered, and guidelines for reporting the results of the scale development process. Appendices include a comprehensive guide to finding existing scales, and a brief introduction to exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. It synthesizes the theory of scale construction with practical advice, making it the ultimate guide to how to develop and validate measurement scales that are to be used in the health sciences.