New PAHO E-books Collection Offers Readers Variety and Ease

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is pleased to announce a new service to all those interested in learning more about the current status of public health in the countries of the Americas, as well as the opportunity to explore more specific topics in this field.

The PAHO E-book Collection allows readers to access four of the Organization’s most-frequently consulted titles in electronic format in two different ways: they may download specific chapters, sections, or an entire publication on a pay-per-view basis; or they may subscribe for one year to the entire collection.

As part of this new initiative, PAHO will be releasing a number of additional titles in separate English- and Spanish-language versions during 2003. Currently, the English collection consists of Health in the Americas, 2002 Edition; Investment in Health: Social and Economic Returns; Health Promotion: An Anthology; and Zoonoses and Communicable Diseases Common to Man and Animals, 3rd Edition, Volume I, Bacterioses and Mycoses. The initial Spanish-language collection includes the first three titles; three additional works on the control of communicable diseases, nutrition and cancer prevention, and health and human rights; and a glossary of medical terminology. As new titles are incorporated into the two collections, regular updates will appear on the PAHO Web site.

Health in the Americas, 2002 Edition, is the latest in a series of two-volume sets published every four years by PAHO. In Volume I, readers will be able to select and download detailed information describing the health situation of the countries of the Western Hemisphere from a regional perspective, including separate analyses of the most important general, demographic and morbidity-mortality trends, and sections identifying the major determinants of health as seen from a political, social, economic, and/or financial perspective. In Volume II, visitors may select and download information within this same analytical framework by individual country, choosing among the 45 nations and territories of the Americas.

In Investment in Health: Social and Economic Returns, readers can find the results of cutting edge research conducted by PAHO, the Inter-American Development Bank, World Bank, United Nations Development Program, and United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and learn more about how investing in health can benefit economic growth, household productivity, and poverty alleviation in the Americas.

By accessing Health Promotion: An Anthology, users can glean the thoughts and ideas of more than 50 public health experts from four continents on five key health promotion topics: constructing a viable framework, creating healthy public health policy, strengthening community action, building personal health skills, and targeting health promotion techniques for specific population groups.

The first volume of Zoonoses and Communicable Diseases Common to Man and Animals, 3rd Edition, offers visitors the latest information available on zoonoses and zoonotic diseases in Latin America and the rest of the world and at the same time describes the great progress that has been made in the prevention and control of these diseases since the first edition of this book was published in 1977. After choosing the disease(s) of most interest to them, users can access comprehensive background information on the disease’s etiology, geographical distribution, role of animals in epidemiology, occurrence in man and animals, source of infection and mode of transmission, diagnosis, and control, just to name of few topics.

Separately and together, the components of the PAHO E-book Collection are valuable reference tools for decision-makers in health, public health and medical professionals and students, scientific researchers, and all others interested in the potential contribution of human health to socioeconomic development and well-being.