BOOK REVIEW
POPULATION HEATH:
POLICY, MANAGEMENT,
TECHNOLOGY (FIRST
EDITION)
Executive Editors: Robert J. Esterhay, LaQuandra S. Nesbitt, James H.
Taylor, H J Bohn Jr.
Convurgent Publishing, LLC, Virginia Beach, VA. June, 2014
Reviewed by
M. Saleem Seyal, MD, FACC, FACP
“Action without vision is only passing time, vision without action is merely day dreaming,
but vision with action can change the world.”
Nelson Mandela (1918-2013)
P
opulation Health : Policy, Management,
Technology is a multi-authored book
written by a talented cadre of diverse
stakeholders in the subject which includes
experts in the field, deans, teachers, government officials in public health, medical practitioners and policy makers. Most of the contributors are affiliated with the University of
Louisville School of Public Health with several outside experts. Executive Editors include: Robert J Esterhay,
MD who is the chair of the Department for Health Management
and Systems Sciences in the School of Public Health and Information Sciences at the University of Louisville, and LaQuandra S.
Nesbitt, MD, MPH, a board-certified family physician who is the
director of the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and
Wellness. James H. Taylor, DMan, MBA, MHA is the past president of the University of Louisville Hospital (1996-2013) and current CEO of the University Medical Center in Louisville, and H.J.
Bohn, Jr. is an author and book editor who has previous publications in the health care field. The Foreword is written by David B.
Nash, MD, MBA who is the founding dean and professor of health
policy of the Jefferson School of Population Health of Thomas
Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA, Editor-in-Chief of Population Health Management and a co-author of Population Health:
Creating a Culture of Wellness (Jones and Bartlett Learning, 2010).
A new paradigm of public health and overall health care has
lately emerged which encourages community or population8
LOUISVILLE MEDICINE
focused approaches, in view of landmark federal policy initiatives
including the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,
and the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (simply
known as ACA). In addition, the Medicare Shared Savings Program was launched in 2011 with ambitious triple goals including
“better care for individuals, better health for populations and lower growth in per capita expenditure.” This book stresses the importance of these “Three-Part Aim” principles and marries them
to another laudable initiative of Healthy People 2020 (www.healthypeople.gov) for achieving longer lives free of preventable disease, disability, injury and premature death. Additionally, strong
emphasis has been placed on the Health in All Policies (HiAP)
approach by the National Association of City and County Health
Officials (NACCO) to improve community health and wellbeing by “a change in the systems that determine how decisions are
made and implemented by local, state, and federal government to
ensure that policy decisions have neutral or beneficial impacts on
the determinants of health (www.nacco.org).” In January 2013, the
Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued a sobering report, titled U.S.
Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health
which posits that for the first time since the end of World War II ,
our children are at risk of having shorter lives than their parents!
Many health determinants have been emphasized as causes of
disparities leading to higher morbidity and mortality statistics as
compared to other advanced nations in the world. Some of these
include: our patterns of food consumption, social inequalities, unemployment, lack of health insurance, high-stress environments