Public health and the risk factor
Subtitle: a history of an uneven medical revolution
By: William G. Rothstein.
Series: Rochester studies in medical history,
Publisher: University of Rochester Press
Published: 2003
Place of publication: Rochester, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 466
Subjects: Health risk assessment -- History.; Health behavior -- History.; Medicine, Preventive -- History.; Coronary heart disease -- Risk factors -- History.; Public Health -- history.; Risk Factors.; Coronary Disease -- prevention & control.; History of Medicine, 20th Cent.; Life Style.
Description: Describes the evolution of a concept that has become central to public health and medical thought: the risk factor. The risk factor concept has been controversial because of its statistical methodology, its multifactorial concept of disease etiology, and its effect on the economic interests of commercial, professional, and health organisations. The author uses nontechnical language to guide readers through a wide array of 18th-, 19th-, and 20th-century technical developments that are the basis of our current understanding of the risk factor concept.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 427-454) and index.
Table of contents: title: The origins of probability and statistics; title: Censuses and vital statistics; title: Statistical analyses of medical and social data; title: Life insurance and the risk factor; title: Cultural and environmental influences on urban mortality rates; title: The germ theory and health education in diphtheria and tuberculosis control; title: Health education and infant mortality in New York City; title: The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company health education programs; title: Early twentieth-century mortality trends and rheumatic heart disease; title: The early years of the coronary heart disease epidemic; title: Causes, correlations, and the etiology of disease; title: Cigarette smoking and statistical correlations; title: Blood pressure and the benefits of treatment; title: The Framingham heart study and the risk factor; title: Theories of the causes of coronary heart disease; title: The diet-heart hypothesis; title: Dietary recommendations and guidelines; title: The secular decline in the coronary heart disease epidemic.