Ted Tulchinsky

• MD MPH
• Professor Emeritus at Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes food fortification as one of the most cost-effective and beneficial public health measures available. Mass fortification policies and regulations can reduce health disparities, including in high-income countries, by improving micronutrient intake among food-insecure or high-risk populations without cha...

Background: Vitamin D and calcium deficiencies are common worldwide, causing nutritional rickets and osteomalacia, which have a major impact on health, growth, and development of infants, children, and adolescents; the consequences can be lethal or can last into adulthood. The goals of this evidencebased consensus document are to provide health car...

Background: Vitamin D and calcium deficiencies are common worldwide, causing nutritional rickets and osteomalacia, which have a major impact on health, growth, and development of infants, children, and adolescents; the consequences can be lethal or can last into adulthood. The goals of this evidence-based consensus document are to provide health c...

The study of ethics in public health became a societal imperative following the horrors of pre World War II eugenics, the Holocaust, and the Tuskegee Experiment (and more recent similar travesties). International responses led to: the Nuremberg Doctors’ Trials, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), and the Convention on Prevention and P...

Micronutrient deficiency conditions are a major global public health problem. While the private sector has an important role in addressing this problem, the main responsibility lies with national governments, in cooperation with international agencies and donors. Mandatory fortification of basic foods provides a basic necessary intake for the major...

Environmental and occupational health is affected by chemical, physical, radiological, and biological agents in the air, water, and soil. Health risks include injury, and exposure to toxic radiation, carcinogenic and teratogenic agents, leading to cancer, lung and heart diseases. Environmental factors may result in instant death or long-term illnes...

Public health depends on information derived from monitoring population health status to identify community health problems, and to diagnose and investigate health problems and hazards in the community. These depend on vital statistics and disease reporting systems, including for non-communicable diseases, injuries, risk factors, health care resour...

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading causes of death and the central issue in contemporary and future public health globally. NCDs are amenable to health promotion, prevention, and medical interventions. Improved social conditions, quality of diet, body weight, smoking cessation, and increased physical activity can greatly reduce the bu...

A health system is an expensive knowledge-based industry made up of professionals, paraprofessionals, and administrative and support personnel. Human resources to provide and manage public health and clinical services are crucial to developing and sustaining national and global health systems. High-income countries are replete with highly trained a...

Populations are not homogeneous or uniform in terms of health. There are differences in age, gender, socioeconomic status, risk factors of lifestyle, and groups whose burden of disease requires special attention. This chapter addresses special needs such as mental health, oral health, and the many groups in a population whose needs are greater and...

Sanitation, food control, vaccines, and antibiotics have reduced the toll of communicable diseases, saving millions of lives. Smallpox was eradicated in 1977, and poliomyelitis eradication is close. Measles mortality has reduced drastically yet outbreaks occur where immunization lags. HIV/AIDS emerged in the 1980s, grew into a global pandemic costi...

Health care systems ideally include universal access to comprehensive prepaid medical care along with health promotion and disease prevention. National health insurance and national health services of various models have evolved in the developed world and increasingly in developing countries as well. Some models, such as the Bismarckian social secu...

Nutrition is a cornerstone to population health status. In developing countries there are severe problems in lack of access to food resulting in malnutrition and stunted growth patterns especially for the most vulnerable subsets of the population. Foodborne diseases are problematic in all countries irrespective of the level of development, with soc...

Ancient societies recognized the needs of sanitation, food safety, workers’ health, and medical care to protect against disease and to promote well-being and civic prosperity. New energies and knowledge since the eighteenth century produced landmark discoveries such as prevention of scurvy and vaccination against smallpox. The biological germ theor...

Preface: Looking Back Helps in Looking Ahead We greatly appreciate the warm reception that the first (1999) and second (2008) English editions of this textbook has received from students, teachers and practitioners of public health in many countries over the past 14 years. It has also been well accepted in translated editions in Russian, Bulgaria...

The New Public Health has established itself as a solid textbook throughout the world. Translated into 7 languages, this work distinguishes itself from other public health textbooks, which are either highly locally oriented or, if international, lack the specificity of local issues relevant to students understanding of applied public health in thei...

have had the privilege of helping to train seven Albanians in public health at our International Master of Public Health program at the Braun School of Public Health of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, including leaders in public health in Albania such as Professors Enver Roshi and Genc Burazeri. I have visited Albania many times in the past de...

Public health has been an enormously effective instrument for improving life expectancy and quality of life. Historically a sphere of governmental activity led by physicians and staffed by sanitarians and nurses, public health has evolved to become a multi-facetted field of societal activity. It engages many agencies and community action in reducin...

This issue of Public Health Reviews is dedicated to exploring the origins of the modern dialogue on public health ethics, which are based on historic religious and humanistic origins and long held medical and public health values. The concept of solidarity is fundamental to public health ethics as health is not only an individual phenomenon, it is...

A survey targeting ASPHER members was launched in 2010/11, being a first initiative in improving ethics education in European Schools of Public Health. An 8-items questionnaire collected informatio ...

Although some progress has been made in India, achievement of the Fifth Millennium Development Goal (MDG5; ie, 75% reduction in maternal mortality ratio [MMR] from 1990 by 2015) target seems to be unattainable by 2015. Failure of the National Population Policy, 2000, and the National Health Policy, 2002, to reduce the MMR demanded a new direction,...

Public health ethics is gaining recognition as a vital topic for public health education. The subject was highlighted in a Delphi survey of future priorities of member schools of The Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER). We conducted a survey of teaching public health ethics in Bachelors and Masters of Public Heal...

With its independence secured on 9th July 2011, the Republic of South Sudan faces a daunting task to improve public health and primary care in one of the poorest countries in the world. Very high maternal and child mortality rates must be a major concern for the new national government and for the many international agencies working in the country....

The late Natan Goldblum was a renowend Iraeli virologist. In the 1970s, polio epidemics were occurring in Gaza and the West Bank, then under Israeli jusrisdiction. Goldblum and Joe Melnick a leading polio expert from Baylor University in Texas recommended adding IPV (inactivated salk vaccine) to the OPV (Sabin) immunization schedule, which we calle...

This article does not have an abstract.

Folic acid is an essential water soluble B vitamin which has been used for decades in the prevention of folate deficiency anemia of pregnancy. In 1991, folic acid taken prior to the start of pregnancy was shown unequivocally to prevent spina bifida and anencephaly—two of the most serious and common birth (neural tube) defects. Soon governments reco...

Micronutrient deficiency conditions are widespread among 2 billion people in developing and in developed countries. These are silent epidemics of vitamin and mineral deficiencies affecting people of all genders and ages, as well as certain risk groups. They not only cause specific diseases, but they act as exacerbating factors in infectious and chr...

The New Public Health is a contemporary application of a broad range of evidence-based scientific, technological, and management systems implementing measures to improve the health of individuals and populations. Its main objectives are the political and practical application of lessons learned from past successes and failures in disease control an...

The Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded in 2005 to JR Warren and BJ Marshall for their identifi cation of the bacteria Helicobacter pylori as the cause of peptic ulcer diseases, establishing another link between infection and chronic diseases. This dramatic scientifi c breakthrough led to curative treatments which reduced suffering from many acute...

Aim: Knowledge, attitudes and practices of Croatian women regarding use of folic acid (FA) before and during pregnancy are assessed. Croatia has no current official recommendations for folic acid use for women who are planning pregnancy or are already pregnant, and there is no fortification of staple foods with FA. Methods. Sample consisted of wome...

The School of Public Health & Community Medicine at Hebrew University- Hadassah, Jerusalem, Israel, has nearly 40 years of experience in international public health training. Since 1971, some 700 health professionals from 85 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East, and North America have graduated our I...

Objective We conducted a systematic review of studies designed to increase awareness of, knowledge about, and consumption of folic acid before and during pregnancy. Data sources Studies were identified from Cochrane Library, Medline, and the references of primary studies and reviews. Study inclusion and exclusion criteria Studies included randomi...

Background: While many women at reproductive age worldwide are aware of the folic acid role in neural tube defects prevention during pregnancy, their compliance with recommendations remains low. Objective: We conducted a systematic review of studies designed to increase awareness of, knowledge about and consumption of folic acid supplements before...

In addition to establishing Canadian federal institutions for public health to work in cooperation with provincial and local health authorities, the infrastructure of public health for the future depends on a multi-disciplinary and well-prepared workforce. Traditionally, Canada trained its public health workforce in schools of public health (or hyg...

In 2001, two Albanian institutions, the Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tirana and the National Institute of Public Health obtained membership to the Association of Schools of Public Health for the European Region (ASPHER). Since 2000, these two institutions have been members of the Public Health for South Eastern Eu...

Letters Polio eradication — end-stage challenges Editor – I wish to suggest an alterna-tive to those strategies discussed by Sutter et al. for poliomyelitis "end-stage and post-eradication" (1). The suggestion is based on the successful eradication of poliomyelitis in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the 1980s. The "Gaza System" for p...

I wish to suggest an alternative to those strategies discussed by Sutter et al. for poliomyelitis “end-stage and post-eradication” (1). The suggestion is based on the successful eradication of poliomyelitis in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the 1980s. The “Gaza System” for polio eradication used a combined programme of live attenuat...

Blood pressure (BP) reduction is crucial in reducing cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality in the community. Subjects aged 20-65 seldom visit the primary care clinics, so they are unlikely to be detected without an active outreach screening program. The aim of the project was to prepare a professional doctor-nurse screening team, who will ins...

Micronutrient deficiencies have reoccupied the center stage of public health policy with the realization that folic acid deficiency results in neural tube defects and possibly other birth defects as well as ischemic heart disease. These, in turn, have raised an older debate on food fortification policy for the elimination of iodine, iron and vitami...

Background and Purpose: Administration of vitamin K at birth is considered to be good medical standard of practice to prevent vitamin K deficiency bleeding (VKDB), and has been widely implemented in many countries. In this paper, we analyze the situation in Croatia. Material and Methods: The vitamin K prophylactic practice in Croatia was surveyed b...

Standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) are used internationally to compare health status across regions and to identify high risk areas for investigation of specific diseases, for funding determination, and for planning purposes. To ascertain regional differences in SMRs by sub-District in Israel for 1987-1994. The indirect method of standardization...

Blood pressure (BP) reduction is crucial in reducing cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The IBPC (Israeli Blood Pressure Control) program was initiated in order to enhance the control of modifiable risk factors among high-risk hypertensive patients under follow-up by general practitioners in Israel. The cost effectiveness of an intervention pr...

Countries of Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States are facing a combination of difficulties in health including high rates of mortality from preventable diseases, and pressures for reform of their health care systems. The development of schools of public health is an important priority for international aid and for national gove...

There is no system for reporting drug and alcohol-related emergency department (ED) visits in Israel. This pilot survey was aimed at examining the feasibility of establishing an ED surveillance system in a general hospital and a psychiatric hospital. We describe the design and preliminary results of a pilot-survey conducted in the emergency departm...

To determine the prevalence of anemia among infants born in 1995 within the Akko sub-district and to investigate the association between anemia and socio-demographic variables. In 1995, 7920 children were born in the Akko sub-district. Recommendations for prophylactic doses of iron preparations were given to all the infants aged 4-12 months screene...

Technology, quality, the law, and ethics are closely interrelated in public health. Well-informed and sensitive analysis of all aspects of their development is a part of the New Public Health. The balance between individual and community rights is very sensitive and must be under continuous surveillance. The New Public Health is replete with techno...

A balance between primary health care and hospital care is an essential element of the health system. Primary care and health promotion are the most cost-effective interventions in improving the health status of the population. Where there has been an excessive emphasis on institutional care, there is real potential for transfer of resources and em...

Public health is organized at the local, state, and national levels to define and work toward health targets. A balanced health care system requires that resources be rationally allocated to the different preventive, curative, or environmental elements of health. Resources must be directed to all vulnerable groups in the population, recognizing tha...

The history of public health is directly related to the evolution of thinking about health. Ancient societies realized the connection between sanitation and health and the role of personal hygiene, nutrition, and fitness. The sanctity of human life established an overriding human responsibility to save life derived from Mosaic Law from 1500 BC. The...

Health care is one of the largest and most important industries in any country, consuming anywhere from 3 to 14% of GNP. It is a service, not a production industry, and it is vital to the health and well-being of the individual, the population, and the economy. Because it employs large numbers of skilled professionals and many unskilled persons, it...

Traditionally public health has paid great attention to some groups because of their particular vulnerability, as in maternal and child health. The benefits to society as a whole are great where such programs are well developed. Middle-aged men and women are important target groups for primary and secondary preventive programming in preparation for...

Information is the basis for planning, organizing, managing, and providing high quality care. The process begins with basic vital statistics and the epidemiology of infectious and noninfectious diseases in order to identify the health needs of the population. It extends into health information systems in order to manage and monitor the functioning...

Chronic conditions are major public health problems in most industrialized countries, and are rapidly becoming so in developing countries. Cardiovascular disease, cancer, and trauma are the major causes of death in most western countries, but the leading cause of years of potential life lost is trauma. Increasing longevity, improved nutrition, soci...

Education and training of medical and allied health personnel are important issues in health care systems development, and include issues of both quantity and quality. Regular reassessment is needed lest the numbers of practitioners produced be larger or fewer than the needs of the services, and lest standards decline. Preparation of managers and p...

Transportation, colonization, and commerce have been responsible for the dissemination of disease throughout history. With rapid movement of large numbers of people by sailing ships, steamships, rail, and later air, the possibility of disease transmission by travelers has increasingly become a global public health problem. Events in any part of the...

Most industrialized countries have implemented national health programs as health insurance systems or national health services. Each was developed in the political context of the country and continues to evolve with its own and international experience. Assuring access to health care for all is a basic principle of the New Public Health. Medical c...

The objective of public health is better health for the individual and for society. Public health works to achieve this through indirect methods, such as by improving the environment, or through direct means such as preventive care for mothers and infants. Clinical care focuses directly on the individual patient, mostly at the time of illness. But...

A society is often judged on how it treats its minorities, its poor, its prisoners, and its refugees as much as how it cares for the main population groups. All such groups need special attention because they are people in need, but also because they can affect the health of others. Public health agencies are often the advocates and pioneers in imp...