Although it is well known that vaccines against many infectious diseases confer positive economic externalities via indirect protection, analysts have typically ignored possible herd protection effects in policy analyses of vaccination programs. Despite a growing literature on the economic theory of vaccine externalities and several innovative…

This most recent Iowa Kids Count data book, "Iowa Kids Count 2011: Trends in the Well-Being of Iowa Children," provides data on 20 different indicators of child and family well-being at the United States, Iowa, substate and county level. The annually produced data book presents health, education, welfare and economic data including…

Texas continues to fall short of the necessary mental health resources for those communities and populations in rural counties. The purpose of this article was to review the mental health resource needs of rural schools in South Texas. The study focused primarily on the perspectives of the school counselors in the identified districts. Funded by a…

Introduction into federal policy of response to intervention (RTI) and positive behavior intervention and supports (PBIS) led to widespread adoption and adaptation of the three tier intervention pyramid. As originally presented, the pyramid highlights three different levels of intervention and suggests the percent of students at each level. While…

Poor childhood health contributes to lower socioeconomic status in adulthood. Subsequently, low socioeconomic status among parents contributes to poor childhood health outcomes in the next generation. This cycle can be particularly pernicious for vulnerable and low-income minority populations, including many children of immigrants. And because of…

My dissertation examines the effectiveness of three policy choices in meeting socio-economic goals. The first analyzes the impact of public health education and poverty relief on child mortality in the early twentieth century, when infant and child mortality rates in the United States were startlingly high. During the 1920s, the rates dropped…

This article focuses on the author's applied anthropological work with the Ingham County Health Department between 1998 and 2001. Government administrators were reflexively aware that nobody had ever stepped back to assess the area's overall environmental health and rank the issues according to some criteria, such as by the "most urgent…

In January 2007, The Center for Health and Health Care in Schools at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services was commissioned to assess operations of school mental health programs in Washington, D.C. and recommend future directions in practices, policies and systems development. While this guidance is directed…

In this article, the author reports on a project which is teaching young parents, most of them from disadvantaged backgrounds, the skills they need to shop and cook healthily on a tight budget. In 2006, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) commissioned the National Federation of Women's Institutes (NFWI) to run "Let's Cook!", a three-year…

Purpose: This paper aims to discuss how sex and relationship education (SRE) could benefit from considering current levels of young women's empowerment in (hetero)sexual relationships and challenge popular notions of twenty-first century young women "having it all" and occupying powerful relational and sexual positions.…

Objective: It is essential for health care professionals to be prepared for a bioterrorist attack or other public health emergency. We sought to determine how well biodefense and emerging infectious disease research information was being disseminated to rural health care providers, first responders, and public health officials. Methods:…

Benjamin Moore (1867-1922), physiologist and biochemist, was an eminent member of the British scientific and medical community in the early twentieth century. As a founder and president of the State Medical Services Association (SMSA) from its establishment in 1912 until his untimely death in 1922, Moore was a prominent medical services activist…

Contamination of the environment with heavy metals such as lead presents many health risks. Simple, effective, and field-portable methods for the measurement of toxic metals in environmental samples are vital tools for evaluating the risks that these contaminants pose. This article describes the use of new developments in anodic stripping…

Advances in prevention science in the past 25 years provide important direction for neighborhood and community efforts to improve the lives of youth. Prevention scientists have applied a public health approach to youth problems such as drug use and delinquency, and have shown that these problems can be prevented. The identification of risk and…

Obesity has been recognized as a worldwide public health problem. It significantly increases the chances of developing several diseases, including Type II diabetes. The roles of insulin and leptin in obesity involve reactions that can be better understood when they are presented step by step. The aim of this work was to design software with data…