Health Systems Science

From two of the world's top scientists and one of the world's top science writers (all parents), Dirt Is Good is a Q&A-based guide to everything you need to know about kids and germs. "Is it OK for my child to eat dirt?" Jack Gilbert and Rob Knight are bombarded with questions like this every week from parents all over the world. Google a question like this, and you'll be overwhelmed with answers. The Internet is rife with speculation and misinformation about the risks and benefits of what most parents think of as simply germs, but which scientists now call the microbiome.

Do your connections with friends, family, or romantic partners leave you feeling dissatisfied or disconnected? In this book, emotional intelligence pioneer Jeanne Segal, PhD, doesn't just talk about love and connection; she shows you how to get and give loving experiences that are nurturing and fulfilling. Feeling Loved explores what we unwittingly do that hijacks our ability to feel loved and goes on to offer powerful research-based tools to transform relationships and support emotional well-being.

In Sleepyhead, science writer Henry Nicholls uses his own experience with chronic narcolepsy as a gateway to better understanding the cryptic, curious, and relatively uncharted world of sleep disorders. Charming, eye-opening, and deeply humanizing, Sleepyhead will help us all uncover the secrets of a good night's sleep.

Jeff Alt takes you along every step of his 2,160-mile Appalachian Trail adventure. This entertaining journey includes bears, bugs, blisters, captivating characters, skunk bedmates, and hilarious food cravings. Alt walked more than five million steps in tribute to his brother, who has cerebral palsy and lives in a home called Sunshine. This trail adventure has inspired an annual event that has raised more than $200,000 for Sunshine. It includes hiking tips for the whole family.

What is our immune system, and how does it work? A vast array of cells, proteins and chemicals spring into action whenever our bodies are damaged, but immunity is not something you can see, touch, or feel. It can fight off malicious bacteria and viruses, locate cancerous growths, and even rewire our brains—but sometimes our own tissues can get caught in its crossfire, with catastrophic consequences. Humans may be the most disease-ridden animals on the planet. Professor John Trowsdale shows how the immune system protects us, and how our bodies invest huge resources to keep it running.

In Curable journalist and health care advocate Travis Christofferson looks at medicine through a magnifying glass and asks an important question: What if the roots of the current US health care crisis are psychological and systemic, perpetuated not just by corporate influence and the powers that be, but by you and me? Curable outlines the future of medicine, detailing brilliant examples of new health care systems that prove we can do better. It turns out we have more control over our health (and happiness) than we think.

Joyful. Graceful. Blessed. Strong. Anxious. Depressed. Stigmatized. Stereotyped. What happens when motherhood isn’t what you expected—and when you reach out for support, you are met with judgment and prejudice? Sandra Igwe shares her journey as a young Black mother, coping with sleepless nights, anxiety, and loneliness after the birth of her first daughter. Burdened by cultural expectations of the “good mother” and the “strong Black woman” trope, her mental health struggles became an uphill battle.

In Unhealthy: Corruption and Malpractice in the American Health System, Dr. Richard Kradin, a professor at Harvard Medical School and expert in pulmonary infectious diseases, explores the history of the corporate and ideological transformation of America’s medical profession and how it has diminished the quality of health care. He describes how progressive medical education has produced a generation of physicians as concerned with political activism as they are with medical science.

In this book, board-certified neuropsychologist Dr. Michelle Braun inspires listeners to make lasting improvements by understanding the truth about brain health and provides expert guidance through the maze of conflicting media advice on supplements, brain games, nutrition, and exercise. She interviews eight leading brain-health experts, combining their insights with cutting-edge research to offer proven strategies to implement the five steps of the High-Octane Brain. Interactive exercises guide listeners to develop a personalized program for optimal brain health.

This audiobook is a practical, evidence-based guide to seven key leadership disciplines that will help anyone working in health care to pursue brighter futures. In this audiobook, Andrew Garman looks at the major changes facing health-care organizations and the leadership competencies required to successfully meet those challenges. He explains how people become more effective leaders over time and what science tells us works best in making this happen.

E. Fuller Torrey's audiobook provides an inside perspective on the birth of the federal mental health program. On staff at the National Institute of Mental Health when the program was being developed and implemented, Torrey draws on his own first-hand account of the creation and launch of the program, extensive research, one-on-one interviews with people involved, and recently unearthed audiotapes of interviews with major figures involved in the legislation. As such, this book provides historical material previously unavailable to the public.

Utah is said to have one million residents who have a diagnosed mental illness. Are those numbers accurate, or is mental health trying to make a profit at the expense of the people? This book goes over my situation and what I've learned about Utah's "behavioral" health system. After discussing my case, I go over what they consider a mental illness, and then I discuss the treatment of those who get the diagnosis. It is a dark and scary infiltration in our society that controls even our own government.

Apply systems thinking in your problem solving, decision making, and strategic planning without the need to become a technical professional. Think in Systems is a concise information manual offering high-level problem-solving methods for personal and global issues. The guide presents the main features of systems thinking in an understandable and everyday manner, helping you to develop this skill top analysts and world leaders use.

Every year, millions of Americans are overcharged and underserved while the health-care industry makes record profits. We know something is wrong, but the layers of bureaucracy designed to discourage complaints make pushing back seem impossible. Never Pay the First Bill is the guerilla guide to health care the American people and employers need. Drawing on 15 years of investigating the health-care industry, reporter Marshall Allen shows how companies and individuals have managed to force medical providers to play fair and shows how you can, too.

Black Women and Public Health creates an urgently needed interdisciplinary dialogue about issues of race, gender, and health. An enduring history of racism, sexism, and dehumanization of Black women's bodies has largely rendered the health needs of the Black community inaudible and invisible. Grounded in the lived experiences and expertise of Black women, this collection bridges gaps between researchers, practitioners, educators, and advocates.

Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania who also served as a special adviser to the White House on health-care reform, has written a brilliant diagnostic explanation of why health care in America has become such a divisive social issue, how money and medicine have their own American story, and why reform has bedeviled presidents of the left and right for more than one hundred years.

The human body is like an exceedingly well-fortified castle, defended by billions of soldiers - some live for less than a day, others remember battles for decades, but all are essential in protecting us from disease. This hidden army is our immune system, and without it we could not survive the eternal war between us and our microscopic enemies. Immune explores the incredible arsenal that lives within us - how it knows what to attack and what to defend and how it kills everything from the common cold to the plague bacterium.

In The Ten Year War, veteran journalist Jonathan Cohn offers the compelling story of the defining political battle of our time, one that will shape political conversations for decades. At the heart of the book is the decades-old argument over what’s wrong with American health care and how to fix it. But the battle over health care was always about more than policy. The Ten Year War offers a deeper examination of how our governing institutions, the media and the two parties have evolved, and the dysfunction those changes have left in their wake.

Andy Lazris, MD, is a practicing primary care physician who experiences the effects of Medicare policy on a daily basis. As a result, he believes that the way we care for our elderly has taken a wrong turn and that Medicare is complicit in creating the very problems it seeks to solve. Aging is not a disease to be cured; it is a life stage to be lived. Lazris argues that aggressive treatments cannot change that fact but only get in the way and decrease quality of life.

This book provides the listener with nine foundational values that transform a healthcare organization, outfitting it to succeed in the modern environment of high accountability and value-based medicine. Plagued by traditional leadership paradigms, the healthcare industry continues to deliver status quo results. Transformational thinking must dominate by embracing the values that have been vetted over 25 years in healthcare settings that are described in The Culture Cure.