This book is designed to provide an economic perspective on health promotion and chronic disease prevention.

Part of the six-volume Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide, this is a comprehensive look at the economics of wellbeing with coverage of history, research, policy, and practice.Examines the challenges inherent in studying and measuring wellbeing from an economic perspectiveDiscusses strategies and interventions to improve wellbeing across the lifespan and in different settingsAddresses the potential economic benefits for governments and policymak...

Canada, like other countries, is aging. The media has reported on a "grey tsunami," a demographic change reflecting longer life expectancy and the retirement of the so-called baby boomer generation. The numbers and percentages of older adults within our population continue to increase. In 2010, 15.3 percent of Canada's population was over 65; in 2030, it will be 24.1 percent. Many commentators have risen alarm about this flood of adults potentially bankrupting our health care system. This ...

In this new edition of his landmark book, Richard Layard shows that there is a paradox at the heart of our lives. Most people want more income. Yet as societies become richer, they do not become happier. This is not just anecdotally true, it is the story told by countless pieces of scientific research. We now have sophisticated ways of measuring how happy people are, and all the evidence shows that on average people have grown no happier in the last fifty years, even as average incomes hav...

A top economist weighs in on one of the most urgent questions of our times: What is the source of inequality and what is the remedy?In Giving Kids a Fair Chance, Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman argues that the accident of birth is the greatest source of inequality in America today. Children born into disadvantage are, by the time they start kindergarten, already at risk of dropping out of school, teen pregnancy, crime, and a lifetime of low-wag...

Universal healthcare, perhaps the most distinguishing feature of Canada's public policy, is under fire, criticized for its heavy expense and questionable sustainability. In Where to From Here?: Keeping Medicare Sustainable, Stephen Duckett defends Canadian Medicare, addressing key concerns and refuting criticism, while also acknowledging flaws in the system and room for improvement.Duckett argues that while the fundamentals of Medicare are sound, a great deal of change is ...

How does education affect economic and social outcomes, and how can it inform public policy?Volume 3 of the Handbooks in the Economics of Education uses newly available high quality data from around the world to address these and other core questions. With the help of new methodological approaches, contributors cover econometric methods and international test score data. They examine the determinants of educational outcomes and issues surrounding teacher salaries and licensure. And reflect...

Praise for Urban Health and Society"This is a spectacular resource for practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and students interested in improving the lives and health of individuals and families in urban settings. This book provides the most current frameworks, research, and approaches for understanding how unique features of the urban physical and social environments that shape the health of over half of the world's population that is already residing...

The health care industry in the U.S. is peculiar. We spend close to 18% of our GDP on health care, yet other countries get better results—and we don't know why. To date, we still lack widely accepted answers to simple questions, such as "Would requiring everyone to buy health insurance make us better off?" Drawing on behavioral economics as an alternative to the standard tools of health economics, author Douglas E. Hough seeks to more clearly diagnose the ills of health care today....

"[This] book’s unfading preoccupation with social context, social processes, and social structures distinguishes itself and greatly contributes to the discourse in gerontology."-The GerontologistThis classic text, now in its fifth edition, is distinguished by its emphasis on social context, social processes, and social structures as part of a broader understanding of the sociology of aging and the life course. Presenting an objective view of the realities of aging, both pos...

Handbook of Aging and the Social Sciences, Seventh Edition, provides extensive reviews and critical evaluations of research on the social aspects of aging. It also makes available major references and identifies high-priority topics for future research. The book is organized into four parts. Part 1 reviews developments in the field of age and the life course (ALC) studies and presents guidelines on conducting cohort analysis. Part 2 covers the demographic aspects of aging; longevity trends...

Are our strategies working to ensure all New Zealand children have the chance to thrive? Or are we wasting time, effort, and children's lives on solutions that make us feel good, yet fail to achieve lasting benefits for our most disadvantaged families? In Pennies from Heaven we seek to uncover the most potent ways to give all children in Aotearoa a "fair go". Why in New Zealand, a country in which concepts of fairness and equality are deeply embedded in our social fabric, are children from...