The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.

From the oceans to continental heartlands, human activities have altered the physical characteristics of Earth's surface. With Earth's population projected to peak at 8 to 12 billion people by 2050 and the additional stress of climate change, it is more important than ever to understand how and where these changes are happening. Innovation in the geographical sciences has the potential to advance knowledge of place-based environmental change, sustainability, and the impacts of a rapidly changing economy and society. Understanding the Changing Planet outlines eleven strategic directions to focus research and leverage new technologies to harness the potential that the geographical sciences offer.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

A study of how materialism and consumerism undermine our quality of life. In The High Price of Materialism, Tim Kasser offers a scientific explanation of how our contemporary culture of consumerism and materialism affects our everyday happiness and psychological health. Other writers have shown that once we have sufficient food, shelter, and clothing, further material gains do little to improve our well-being. Kasser goes beyond these findings to investigate how people's materialistic desires relate to their well-being. He shows that people whose values center on the accumulation of wealth or material possessions face a greater risk of unhappiness, including anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and problems with intimacy—regardless of age, income, or culture. Drawing on a decade's worth of empirical data, Kasser examines what happens when we organize our lives around materialistic pursuits. He looks at the effects on our internal experience and interpersonal relationships, as well as on our communities and the world at large. He shows that materialistic values actually undermine our well-being, as they perpetuate feelings of insecurity, weaken the ties that bind us, and make us feel less free. Kasser not only defines the problem but proposes ways we can change ourselves, our families, and society to become less materialistic.

In early 2007, the Institute of Medicine convened the Roundtable on Health Disparities to increase the visibility of racial and ethnic health disparities as a national problem, to further the development of programs and strategies to reduce disparities, to foster the emergence of leadership on this issue, and to track promising activities and developments in health care that could lead to dramatically reducing or eliminating disparities. The Roundtable's first workshop, Challenges and Successes in Reducing Health Disparities, was held in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 31, 2007, and examined (1) the importance of differences in life expectancy within the United States, (2) the reasons for those differences, and (3) the implications of this information for programs and policy makers.

This book investigates critical urban issues related to socio-spatial segregation, housing, daily travel, mobility of the elderly, etc. from the perspective of wellbeing. This is a collection of the latest research works by frontline researchers working in the fields of geography, urban studies, transport, and sociology. Drawing on theoretical and empirical explorations, collected chapters in this book connect mobility and wellbeing, bridge geography and health, and analyze the implications of mobility disadvantages on urban marginal groups’ wellbeing. Research findings presented in the book are also highly relevant for practitioners and policy makers in the pursuit of improving urban livability since wellbeing, or quality of life, is increasingly considered as an important criteria alternative to income growth to evaluate economic, social and urban development.

An increasing amount of work in many aspects of human geography is concerned with the effects caused by different types of institutions. Included in this book, originally published in 1982, is material from Britain, Ameican and Europe and it is shown that differences in institutional powers in these places, especially those vested in the State, relate directly to their own particular urban and environmental policies and problems. Each chapter, written by an expert on this subject, considers key institutions in a number of fields and draws conclusions about how this ‘institutionalist’ approach can be used by geographers.

This book explains various social and cultural aspects of human distribution over the earth. In contemporary era, the role of social and cultural factors is immense in shaping human behaviour in every human civilization. During the last fifty years, social and cultural geography opens up new and diverse dimensions in front of researchers for the whole discipline of Geography. Linked with the modernization of cultures, community identity is taking a new shape among our young generation and the development of critical and phenomenological approaches has strengthened these two subfields since the last fifty years. Pointing out its origin and development, this book revolves around the contemporary features of social and cultural elements of any human civilization on the earth. Special aspects like Social processes, Social problems, Globalization and Cultural dimensions of development, technology and cultural change, institutionalization of communities, cultural plurality—all are elaborately discussed. Concepts of transnationalism, cyberculture, impact of new technology and virtual mode of communication are also discussed in depth mentioning their impact on our social structure. Role of social mobility on the creation of a specific regional identity and the concepts of hybrid culture and socio-cultural transformation are also explained in detail. Thus, the book helps in understanding the present social and cultural elements of human civilization and will be of immense value to the students pursuing undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Geography. TARGET AUDIENCE • B.A./B.Sc. Geography • M.A./M.Sc. Geography

The First British-Soviet Geographical Seminar contains the scientific reports prepared by the participants of First British-Soviet Geographical Seminar held in Great Britain on May 9-20, 1978. The seminar focuses on tendencies in the development of contemporary trends and methods of scientific geographical studies in Soviet Union and Great Britain. Organized into 16 chapters, this book begins with a discussion on the contemporary British geography and modern Soviet geography. Subsequent chapters explore the use of minicomputers in geography teaching; expanded model of curriculum development and diffusion in education; postgraduate research students in British universities; research and application in British geomorphology; and the Soviet physical and biological geography. Other chapters detail landscape protection and development control; aims and implementation in British urban and regional planning; main methods of systems analysis relevant to urban and regional modeling; problems of the inner city; and the statistical and cartographic methods of analyzing spatial patterns of mortality. The geography of mineral supply; socio-economic geography in the U.S.S.R.; and the possibilities for future British-Soviet co-operation in geography are also addressed.