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Una brújula para la crisis: México: Lecciones derivadas del COVID-19

by GC Genera, Compiled by Daniel Tapia Quintana

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La pandemia COVID-19 ha implicado grandes cambios para las sociedades y los países a nivel mundial. México no ha sido la excepción. Los desafíos que tendrá que enfrentar son múltiples y complejos. La pandemia ha acentuado problemas como la pobreza, la desigualdad, el desempleo, el acceso a la salud, la calidad y equidad educativa, por citar solo algunos. Este libro, con la visión de expertos y especialistas, analiza las implicaciones de la pandemia, propone alternativas y genera aprendizajes para enfrentar una de las crisis más severas en las últimas décadas.

GC Genera es una empresa de consultoría con sede en México. Fundada en 2010, GC Genera asesora a tomadores de decisiones en temas estratégicos como análisis y diseño de políticas públicas, planeación estratégica, evaluación de programas, gestión del cambio, análisis prospectivo, análisis de riesgos y capacitación ejecutiva. Los esfuerzos realizados por GC Genera se orientan a mejorar la toma de decisiones fundamentado en evidencia sólida en materia de política pública para atender las necesidades específicas del sector público, privado y social.

Daniel Tapia es Fundador y Director General de GC Genera. Anteriormente, Daniel se ha desempeñado como servidor público a nivel federal en la Comisión Federal de Competencia, la Secretaría de Gobernación y la Oficina de Políticas Públicas de la Presidencia de la República. Es egresado de la Maestría en Política Educativa por la Universidad de Harvard y cuenta con estudios en relaciones internacionales y matemáticas.

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Managing Challenges for the Flint Water Crisis

Edited by Toyna E. Thornton, Andrew D. Williams, Katherine M. Simon, Jennifer F. Sklarew 

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The field of emergency and crisis management covers countless natural and human-induced hazards as well high threats. Focusing events occur at every level of governance; however, it is at the local level in which the ‘rubber’ response efforts meets the proverbial ‘road.’ While politicians and policymakers typically attempt to reduce the impacts associated with disasters by anticipating the unexpected, many challenges remain. Understanding disaster meaning, even causality, is essential to the problem-solving process.

While the resources of local governments are shrinking, expectations for delivering real-world results are greater than ever before. In the water crisis of Flint, Michigan, decision-makers believed to be making sound choices by changing the treated water source from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department– water that was sourced from Lake Huron and the Detroit River–to the Flint River. Since the water from Flint River was contaminated, and officials failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water, it resulted in an environmental water quality disaster; that is, exposing 100,000 residents to elevated levels of lead.

This edited volume examines several public management and intergovernmental failures, with particular attention on social, political, and financial impacts. The editors come from a variety of backgrounds, including a pracademic, an academic connected with communities of practice, a local government expert, an emergency management professional, and an environmental policy scholar. The collection of chapter authors includes professional colleagues and experts from the social sciences, public administration, emergency and crisis management, and environmental policy fields, most of which are affiliated with the key professional association, the American Society for Public Administration.

 

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Outlines of Nursing History

by Minnie Goodnow

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Minnie Goodnow was born on July 10, 1871 in Albion, New York. She dedicated her life to leadership in nursing — working, teaching and as a historian of the field. During World War I she joined the Harvard Unit of American medical practitioners and worked in military hospitals in England and France. She wrote a great deal about her experiences there, particularly for the need of professional nurse education. Upon returning to the United States, she continued to write and lecture on this and other topics. Some of her books include Ten Lessons in Chemistry for Nurses (1914), Outlines of Nursing History (1916), War Nursing (1918), Practical Physics for Nurses (1919), and The Technic of Nursing (1928).

She often served as the superintendent of nurses in hospitals, including those in Rhode Island, Michigan, Colorado and in Washington DC. She was an organizing member of the Congress of the International Council of Nurses in Paris. Goodnow traveled to over forty countries to lecture, teach and do research for her books. She passed away at the age of 80, renowned as a pioneer in the field of nursing and nursing education.

This new edition is dedicated to Dr María Pérez, scholar and teacher.

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Studies in Ethics for Nurses

by Charlotte A. Aikens

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Charlotte Albina Aikens dedicated her life to nursing. In 1868 she was born in Mitchell, Ontario, Canada. During the Spanish-American War she volunteered her services as a nurse. Later, she went to serve as director of Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, DC. She left to work as the superintendent of nurses at Methodist Hospital in Des Moines, IA. Aikens also worked in Columbia Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA.

In addition to her services in hospitals, she wrote voluminously about nursing. Aikens was named associate editor of National Hospital Record in 1902), and for Trained Nurse and Hospital Review, she became associate editor in 1911, and four years later became the editor in 1915. In addition to editing journals, she wrote numerous books, like Studies in Ethics for Nurses in 1916. On Oct 20, 1949, she passed away in Detroit, Michigan

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Doctor Judas: A Portrayal of the Opium Habit

by Charles Evans

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William Rosser Cobbe was a Chicago journalist who became addicted to opium, which he nicknamed ‘Doctor Judas.’ He was addicted for at least nine years at the time of writing his account, and discusses the mental and physical toll years of addiction took on himself, as well as that of his family. He hoped that his account would cause physicians to reconsider so generously prescribing opium, along with other drugs. Cobbe also writes of other addictive agents, such as cigarettes and cocaine.

At the time of his death, it did not appear that Cobbe had fully kicked his addictions. He was found dead in a hallway in 1907. He was doing various writing jobs while living in New York, where he had moved three years before his passing. He was estranged from his family, as his wife and two daughters were living in Chicago. It is believed that Cobbe was originally a medical doctor, but lost his position due to addiction.

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The Mysteries of the Head and Heart Explained: A Look at Phrenology and Mesmerism

by J. Stanley Grimes

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James Stanley Grimes was born in Boston on May 10, 1807. Although he wrote a tremendous amount, little is known about him personally. He married Frances Warner in 1832, but never remarried after she passed away in 1848. He graduated from Union College in 1840, went on to teach law the following year at Castleton Medical College. He quickly left law, focusing on writing on everything from natural selection, theology, and neurology but his focus became mesmerism and phrenology. He wrote extensively on issues of science, religion and human advancement as well.

The Mysteries of the Head and Heart is broken into three sections, with the first discussing phrenology, the second examining physiology and the third broadly looking at mesmerism. Some of his suggestions retain a certain possible validity, despite the controversial subject matter. One commentator notes, “In 1839 … Grimes — then living in Buffalo, New York and running a small group of phrenologists called the Western Phrenological Society — published a modification of Coombe’s phrenological system that [a] divided the organs of the brain into three groups (the ipseal, the social and the intellectual), and [b] added several new organs to the commonly-held phrenological model, including organs of chemicality, pneumativeness (merely having to do with breathing, alas), sanitativeness and (important for this discussion) credenciveness.”

 

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Epidemic Cholera: The Mission and Mystery, Haunts and Havocs, Pathology and Treatment

by A Former Surgeon in the Service of the Honorable East India Company

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Epidemic cholera is truly awful. Cholera causes violent cramps, vomiting and diarrhea that are so frequent and serious that the body will quickly dehydrate. A person infected with cholera can die within a few hours because the dehydration can be so severe that the blood coagulates. Cholera was deadly because of several longstanding inaccurate thoughts on its cause: namely, that ‘inferior’ people with personal failings, or members of a different culture, combined with exposure to environmental filth, were likely to fall victim. While environmental issues are a cause–contaminated drinking water is a major contributor to cholera outbreaks–during the 1800s and onwards, physicians believed that personal characteristics also contributed to cholera. This volume offers a snapshot in time on these beliefs manifested in terms of approach and treatment. Sadly, cholera is far from a dated disease. Yemen is currently facing a major cholera crisis, with smaller outbreaks recently reported in Somalia and Darfur.

 

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Demand the Impossible: Essays in History as Activism

Editors: Nathan Wuertenberg and William Horne

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Born from the wave of activism that followed the inauguration of President Trump, Demand the Impossible asks scholars what they can do to help solve present-day crises. The twelve essays in this volume draw inspiration from present-day activists. They examine the role of history in shaping ongoing debates over monuments, racism, clean energy, health care, poverty, and the Democratic Party. Together they show the ways that the issues of today are historical expressions of power that continue to shape the present. Adequately addressing them means understanding their origins.

The way our society remembers the past has long served to cement inequality. It is no accident that the ahistorical slogan “make America great again” emerged after decades of income inequality and a generation of funding cuts to higher education. But the movement toward openly addressing injustice and inequality though historical inquiry is growing. Although many historians remain tucked away in ivory towers of their own making, we join a long tradition of activist scholars like W.E.B. Du Bois, C.L.R. James, and C. Vann Woodward, as well as a growing wave of engaged colleagues including Keri Leigh Merritt, who penned the foreword for this volume. As historians and citizens, we feel a responsibility to preserve an authentic vision of the past in a moment riddled with propaganda and lies. In doing so, we hope to help provide a framework to fight the inequities we inherited from prior generations that are repurposed and enshrined by the powerful today.

Nathan Wuertenberg is a doctoral candidate at The George Washington University. He is conducting research for a doctoral dissertation on the 1775 American invasion of Quebec, entitled “Divided We Stand: The American War for Independence, the 1775 Quebec Campaign, and the Rise of Nations in the Twilight of Colonial Empires.” William Horne is a PhD candidate at The George Washington University researching the relationship of race to labor, freedom, and capitalism in post-Civil War Louisiana. His dissertation, “Carceral State: Baton Rouge and its Plantation Environs Across Emancipation,” examines the ways in which white supremacy and capitalism each depended on restricting black freedom in the aftermath of slavery.

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Resilient Hospitals Handbook: Strengthening Healthcare and Public Health Resilience in Advance of a Prolonged and Widespread Power Outage

by Charles “Chuck” Manto, Earl Motzer PhD, James Terbush MD

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A number of high-impact threats to critical infrastructure can result in a regional or nationwide months-long power outage, making it unlikely for timely outside help to arrive. Hospitals are encouraged to gain the capacity to make and store enough power on-site to operate in island mode indefinitely without outside sources of power or fuel and protect on-site capabilities from threats that could impact regional commercial power systems. This handbook outlines challenges and opportunities to solve these problems so hospitals, healthcare facilities, and other resources might become more resilient. From the Second Goal of the 2015 National Space Weather Strategy: http://www.dhs.gov/national-space-weather-strategy
• “Complete an all-hazards power outage response and recovery plan: —for extreme space weather event and the long-term loss of electric power and cascading effects on other critical infrastructure sectors.
• Other low-frequency, high-impact events are also capable of causing long-term power outages on a regional or national scale.
• The plan must include the Whole Community.”

From the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency
https://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/736859
• “An electromagnetic (EM) attack (nuclear electromagnetic pulse [EMP] or non-nuclear EMP [e.g., high-power microwave, HPM]) has the potential to degrade or shut down portions of the electric power grid important to DoD.
• Restoring the commercial grid from the still functioning regions may not be possible or could take weeks or months. Significant elements of the DCI require uninterrupted power for prolonged periods to perform time-critical missions (e.g., sites hardened to MIL-STD-188-125-1).
• To ensure these continued operations, DCI sites must be able to function as a microgrid that can operate in both grid-connected and intentional island-mode (grid-isolated).

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Popular Guide to Homeopathy for Family and Private Use

by Smith & Worthington

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Many homeopathic guides have been created over time. This particular work is compiled from the standard works of Pulte, Laurie, Hempel, Ruddock, Burt, Verdi, and others, in order to offer twenty-eight homoeopathic remedies. Many quacks, charlatans and snake oil salesmen have roamed the world, claiming medical knowledge. This volume claimed to be a guide against them, suggesting better cures for cholera, small pox, poisoning and even drowning. Some of the cures include known toxins, such as belladonna and mercury. Obviously the work is offered only for historical interest, and not as medical advice!

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Nonprofit Organizations and Disaster: Individual, Organizational and Network Approaches to Emergency Management

Edited by Scott Robinson and Haley Murphy

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Disasters have become a more salient part of our life. Events ranging from terrorist attacks to major hurricanes to heatwaves can significantly disrupt our communities and place the most vulnerable among us at risk. The largest of these events—within seeming increasing frequency—test our communities’ capacity to handle these threats. These broad threats call for a broad range of responses—and responding organizations.

This text collects a series of perspectives on the role of charitable and nonprofit organizations in helping our communities address the threats served by natural and man-made disasters. The chapters introduce varying approaches that assess the nature of non-profit organizations responding to disasters from the personal to the systemic level. They leave the reader with an appreciation for the diverse roles that nonprofit organizations play in community disaster preparedness and response along with the challenges they face.

The contributions to this volume were selected by Scott E. Robinson and Haley Murphy from recent scholarship appearing in the academic journal Risk, Hazards, and Crisis in Public Policy. Scott E. Robinson is Professor and Bellmon Chair of Public Service in the Department of Political Science at the University of Oklahoma. Haley Murphy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Oklahoma State University.

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Drinking-Water and Ice Supplies and Their Relations to Health and Disease: Filtration in the 1900s

by T. Mitchell Prudden MD

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Theophil Mitchell Prudden (1849-1924) wrote numerous medical books, focusing on rather mundane aspects of life and their connection to health, such as Story of the Bacteria (1889) and Dust and its Dangers (1891). Prudden was born in Connecticut and studied at Yale where he received his MD in 1875. He went on to become a Professor of Pathology at Columbia University in 1892, where he taught until 1909. Prudden developed successful labs, wrote a great deal and incorporated in the curriculum newly emerging medical fields such as pathology, microbiology and infectious diseases. He deeply loved his work and research. On the rare occasion he vacationed, he traveled to the Southwest and enjoyed the isolation while hunting for fossils.

This edition is dedicated to Jeff Camkin, who pursues water policy studies with energy and good humor.

 

 

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Growing Inequality: Bridging Complex Systems, Population Health, and Health Disparities

Editors: George A. Kaplan, Ana V. Diez Roux, Carl P. Simon, and Sandro Galea

No single factor—but a system of intertwined causes — explains why America’s health is poorer than the health of other wealthy countries and why health inequities persist despite our efforts. Teasing apart the relationships between these many causes to find solutions has proven extraordinarily difficult. But now, in this book, researchers report on groundbreaking insights using computer-based systems science tools to simulate how these determinants come together to produce levels of population health and disparities and test new solutions.

The culmination of over five years of work by experts from a more than a dozen disciplines, this book represents a bold step forward in identifying why some populations are healthy and others are not. Applying the techniques of systems science, it shows how these tools can be used to increase our understanding of the individual, group, and institutional factors that generate a wide range of health and social problems. Most importantly, it demonstrates the utility and power of these techniques to both wisely guide our understanding and help policy makers know what works.

Recent review of Growing Inequality by Interdisciplinary Association of Population Health Science (IAPHS):
https://iaphs.org/book-review-complex-systems-population-health-insights-network-inequality-complexity-health/

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“This book begins the process of unraveling some of the most ‘wicked’ problems in public health.”                 — Tony Iton, MD, JD, MPH—The California Endowment

… an intellectually courageous undertaking. It faces up to the reality of complexity in the social determinants of health. Its achievements and its documentation of difficulties will serve as a valuable foundation for the next generation of scientists and scholars who aim to understand the determinants of health and of health disparities.” 
— Harvey V. Fineberg, MD, PhD, President, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Former President, the Institute of Medicine

…goes beyond the search for a simplistic answer to health disparities and instead embraces the complexity. This is exactly what is needed if we are to improve population health and eliminate disparities.” 
— Thomas A. LaVeist, PhD, Chairman, Department of Health Policy & Management, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University
 
It is increasingly likely that in the non-distant future that population health policy will be fully informed by a coherent computational decision-support system that integrates data, analytics, systems modeling, forecasting, and cost-effectiveness. This book marks a serious movement toward that future.” 
— Donald S. Burke, MD, Associate Vice Chancellor for Global Health, Dean, Graduate School of Public Health UPMC, Jonas Salk Professor of Global Health, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburg

International Journal of Epidemiology
https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/47/1/351/4819238
“a master-class in how to model and how to apply complexity thinking to public health problems.”

Sociology and Complexity Science Blog
http://sacswebsite.blogspot.com/2017/06/growing-inequality-bridging-complex.html
“the main point of the book remains cutting-edge and clear: if we are to advance our ability to more effectively address the complex health inequalities that now exist on a global level — and the myriad intersections they have with such global complexities as economy, politics, geography, ecology and culture — it is imperative that public health scholars and the larger healthcare field (and those they serve) embrace a complex systems perspective.”

Epidemiology Monitor
http://www.epimonitor.net/George-Kaplan-Interview.htm

American Journal of Preventive Medicine
Am J Prev Med 2018;54(6):845–847
“A stronger capacity to understand complex systems would help medicine and public health. It would help us understand the surrounding ecosystem within which A and B operate; the unrecognized factors that shape outcomes; and the smartest system strategies for health care, public health, and social policy to maximize effectiveness. If this occurs, the field may look back at the book by Kaplan et al. as a seminal work that helped launch a new literature. If not, we will continue studying trees and ignoring the forest.”

American Journal of Public Health
AJPH June 2018, Vol 108, No. 6
“The editors of Growing Inequality describe new computer-based systems science tools to simulate how social determinants of health disparities are occurring in many important public health outcomes and test new possible solutions. Complex systems thinking offers the possibility of developing and implementing innovative systems strategies in the form of policy decisions and possible interventions.”

 

 

 

 

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The Early History of Surgery in Great Britain: Its Organization and Development

by G. Parker MA

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G. Parker writes with authority and grace as he examines the early history of surgery. He begins at roughly the year 1000 and ends in 1850, highlighting what was then modern practice. As do other surgerymedical historians, he finds that the gruesome aftermath of military interventions often push along new medical technologies. Early History of Surgery offers glimpses of various medical figures such as John of Mirfield and William Shippen. Parker takes time to note how the development of the field of surgery was connected with the widespread presence of guilds. He also provides thumbnail sketches of the practice of medicine in various countries for comparison.

This new edition is dedicated to Dr. Robert Enelow, who practices the healing arts with wit and spirit.

 

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Poverty in America: Urban and Rural Inequality and Deprivation in the 21st Century

Max J. Skidmore

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Poverty in America too often goes unnoticed, and disregarded. This perhaps results from America’s general level of prosperity along with a fairly widespread notion that conditions inevitably are better in the USA than elsewhere. Political rhetoric frequently enforces such an erroneous notion: “the poor live better in America than the middle class elsewhere,” “America has the best health care in the world,” “income inequality is a sign of ‘freedom’,” and the like. With American poverty increasing, social mobility decreasing, and income inequality growing it has become urgent that our society direct its attention to poverty as one of the country’s most troublesome issues. Poverty and Public Policy helps to focus that attention worldwide; this book, Poverty in America will help to emphasize the issue in this country.

Max J. Skidmore (Ph.D., University of Minnesota) teaches at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where he is University of Missouri Curators’ Professor of Political Science, and Thomas Jefferson Fellow. He has been Distinguished Fulbright Lecturer in India, where he was Director of the American Studies Research Centre in Hyderabad, and has been Senior Fulbright Scholar at the University of Hong Kong. He has published over two dozen works on numerous topics, including Social Security and its Enemies (1999), Securing America’s Future: A Bold Plan to Preserve and Expand Social Security (2008), Bulwarks Against Poverty: Social Security, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act (2014), and Presidents, Pandemics, and Politics (forthcoming, 2016).

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Stories from the Diary of a Doctor: Snippets of Early Medicine and Life in England

by L. T. Meade and Clifford Halifax MD

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Clifford Halifax was actually the pseudonym of Edgar Beaumont (1860-1921). Interestingly, he used this name only when writing with L. T. Meade. Beaumont was indeed a physician operating in the UK and wrote a variety of works related to being a physician, including This Troublesome World (1893), The Sanctuary Club (1899) and A Race With the Sun (1901). He also published a variety of short stories, with his work bordering on somewhere between semi-autobiographical, horror, detective and science fiction. L. T. Meade was also a pseudonym for Elizabeth Thomasina Meade Smith (1844-1914), whose work also stretched into various territories, including detective, fantasy, romance and science fiction. Including those works with Beaumont, Meade was also responsible for works such as A Master of Mysteries (1898), The Desire of Man: An Impossibility (1899), and The Sorceress of the Strand (1903). Describing her as a prolific author would be an understatement; she is credited with writing over 300 books in her life. She was active in other areas as well, including being a member of the Pioneer club, formed in 1892 by Emily Massingberd and predominately aimed to promote feminism and higher thought. This edition is dedicated to Dr. Bonnie Stabile, versatile leader in public health publishing.

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Florence Nightingale: The Wounded Soldier’s Friend

by Eliza F. Pollard

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Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) is regarded as the founder of modern nursing. The Nightingale Museum in London includes such curiosities as the lantern she carried on her rounds to the wounded during the BookCoverImage-8Crimean War, more than a thousand of her letters, and her pet owl, Athena.

This volume, composed shortly after her death, contains the dramatized story of her life. It is just one of many that appeared, but is among the best examples, and has been credited with inspiring many to consider nursing careers.

 

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Bulwarks Against Poverty in America

by Max J. Skidmore

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In Bulwarks Against Poverty in America, long-time Social Security scholar Max J. Skidmore presents seminal articles selected from the journal Poverty and Public Policy to clear away much of the confusion dominating pubic discussion relating to Social Security, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act. Experts in the field have praised this important book as a weapon against “misinformation and ideological mischief.” They say it is “a must-read for policymakers,” and a “road map to the debates raging over the future of Social Security, Medicare, and health care reform.” Skidmore’s Bulwarks is a thoughtful contribution to a field heavily influenced by misrepresentation and scare propaganda.

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Conflicts in Health Policy

Conflict in Health Policy COVER FRONT ONLY

Edited by Bonnie Stabile, Introduced by Randy S. Clemons & Mark K. McBeth

When conflicts arise in health policy, the insights of policy scholars can contribute to crafting solutions to seemingly intractable problems.   Beyond their mere technical attributes, health and medical policy issues require political acumen and policy knowledge to diagnose problems, inform debate, and devise policy interventions.  The cases in this volume cover a range of health issues and illustrate how political theory and philosophy are critical to efforts aimed at treating public health challenges.

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Homeopathy: B.F. Bittinger’s Historical Sketch of Washington’s Hahnemann Monument 

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One of the more imposing monuments in Washington is not to a general or to a congressman but to a leader in the homeopathic movement. One may wonder whether homeopathic remedies are effective; there is not an iota of proof that the promises the movement makes are ever kept, but homeopathic systems continue to be financed by governments, including India and Britain, and to be patronized by notables such as the British royal family. The monument therefore is one of the capital’s most interesting, if controversial sights.