Academic Press Mental and Neurological Public Health: A Global Perspective

Colin Mathers who leads the Global Burden of Disease group in WHO has confirmed that, in the 2004 GBD, 13.1% of global Daily Adjusted Life Years are attributable to mental or neurological disorders. While the proportions vary very widely from about 10% in low income countries to over 25% in high income countries, it is clear that there is a need for understanding how to address this issue. This volume aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the public health principles of mental and neurological disorders. This vast range of health conditions affects people across the life course, from developmental disabilities in childhood, to schizophrenia and substance abuse in adults, and dementia in old age. Despite this diversity, they all share many features: they are mostly mediated through brain dysfunction or abnormalities, are often chronic in course, typically benefit from multi-component interventions, and are amongst the most neglected conditions in global health. The volume will bring together chapters from the Psychiatry, Neurology, Substance Abuse and Child Development sections of the Encyclopedia of Public Health. The volume will be the first comprehensive text on a public health approach to this diverse group of health conditions and has no obvious competitor. About the Author Stella Quah (Ph.D) is Adjunct Professor, Health Services and Systems Research Program, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, National University of Singapore. Her previous appointment was as Professor of Sociology at the National University of Singapore where she started her long academic career in 1972, initially at the Department of Community Medicine and Public Health and later on at the Department of Sociology. She was a Fulbright-Hays scholar from 1969 to 1971. Her research and professional activities include sabbaticals as Research Associate and Visiting Scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California Berkeley (1986-87); the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Department of Sociology at Harvard University (1993-94); the Harvard-Yenching Institute, Harvard University (1997); the Stanford Program in International Legal Studies, Stanford University (1997); the National Centre for Development Studies, Australian National University (2002); and the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University (2006). She was elected Chairperson of the Research Committee on Health Sociology of the International Sociological Association (ISA) for the session 1990-1994; Vice-President for Research of ISA and Chairperson of the ISA Research Council for the session 1994-1998; and served as Associate Editor of International Sociology (1998-2004). As part of her current professional activities, Stella Quah serves in institutional review boards; and is member of international Editorial and Advisory Boards of several referee journals including the British Journal of Sociology and Sociology of Health and Illness. She has published extensively on health sociology, public policy and family sociology including the International Handbook of Sociology (London: Sage, 2000) edited with A. Sales and Families in Asia: Home and Kin (London: Routledge, 2008);. Among her publications on health sociology are “Crisis Prevention and Management during SARS Outbreak, Singapore, Emerging Infectious Diseases, 10, 2: 364-368, 2004, with HP Lee; “Traditional Healing Systems and the Ethos of Science, Social Science and Medicine, 57, 10:1997-2012, 2003; Crisis Preparedness: Asia and the Global Governance of Epidemics, ed. (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Shorenstein APARC & Brookings Institution, 2007); “Public image and governance of epidemics: Comparing HIV/AIDS and SARS, Health Policy, 80, 253-272, 2007; “Health and culture in The New Blackwell Companion to Medical Sociology (edited by W.C. Cockerham, 2010);