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Water and Health in an Overcrowded World
Edited by Tim Halliday and Basiro Davey
104 pages
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60 full colour illustrations
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263x210mm
978-0-19-923730-2
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Paperback
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13 September 2007
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- Blends an integrated multidisciplinary approach with case studies to create a unique learning experience.
- Extensive learning features, including activities, chapter summaries, learning outcomes, in-text and self-assessment questions, Explanation and Enrichment boxes, references and further reading, offer full support for learning, making this the ideal resource for any student, regardless of prior scientific knowledge.
- Custom-developed multimedia content, on the associated DVD, enriches the learning process still further, helping you to get even more out of the resource.
- Online Resource Centre features additional materials for both lecturers and students, enhancing the book's value as a teaching and learning tool.
Water and Health in an Overcrowded World illuminates the ways in which urban and rural environments and living conditions affect human health, disease and disability in contrasting populations around the world. It looks widely, setting the health experience of contemporary societies in a rapidly urbanising world in the context of human evolutionary history and human biology. The great majority of humans now live in an environment which is very different from that in which we evolved. We are still subject to the age-old selection pressures of infectious disease and
interpersonal violence, but living in an overcrowded 'human zoo' is generating unprecedented sources of human disease and disability, such as pollution, traffic accidents, obesity, alcohol, tobacco and stress. An interactive DVD program models the evolution of one new threat: antibiotic resistant bacteria. The human zoo offers many benefits, but the costs to human health and happiness are considerable, as a review of some key global health statistic illustrates.
The book concludes with a detailed case study of a scarce resource which is vital for human health: clean water. It considers the global water cycle, the uneven distribution and use of water between regions, and the impact of population growth, development and climate change on freshwater resources. More
than a billion people worldwide are at risk from polluted drinking water and two and a half billion lack even the most basic sanitation. The consequences are illustrated by a discussion of water-borne diseases such as cholera, which cause millions of deaths every year. An interactive DVD using chemical models, video clips and photographs presents the chemistry of water at the molecular level and explains how compounds such as nitrates from fertilisers dissolve in it. This leads to an examination of water pollution by chemicals of human origin, including nitrates, mercury and endocrine disruptors. The authors conclude that the Earth's expanding human population is in a rapidly accelerating competition for water for irrigation, drinking and industrial processes, which threatens both human
health and the preservation of biodiversity.
The Online Resource Centre features:
For lecturers who are registered adopters of the book:
- Figures from the book in electronic format, available to download
For students:
Access to ROUTES, a searchable internet database of online resources compiled by academic staff and subject-specialist librarians.Readership: Undergraduates studying biomedical science, human biology, and health science, particularly those with an interest in public health. Also a valuable reference for health professionals requiring a straightforward introduction to the subject.
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Edited by Tim Halliday, Open University, and Basiro Davey, Open University Contributors:
Tim Halliday, Basiro Davey, Hilary MacQueen, Biological Sciences, Open University
David Roberts, Chemistry, Open University
Brian Richardson, Eleanor Crabbe, Steve Best, Greg Black, Multimedia, Open University
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1: Living in the human zoo
1.1 Introduction
1.2 The modern human environment
1.3 A very short history of human evolution
1.4 Costs and benefits of life in developed countries
1.5 Diet, obesity and the risk to health
1.6 Psychological problems in the human zoo
2: Measuring the world's health
2.1 Epidemiology
2.2 Counting deaths
2.3 Estimating the burden of ill health
3: Water and human health
3.1 Water as a global resource
3.2 The global water cycle
3.3 The distribution of water and its use by people
3.4 Water-borne infectious diseases
3.5 Water chemistry and life
3.6 Chemical pollution of water
3.7 Postscript to this book
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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