Creating Community Health: Interventions for Sustainable Healthcare

Description

This important book explores how community-based interventions can bridge the gap between health services and the voluntary sector to create more sustainable, healthy communities. Moving beyond a technologically driven, medicalised approach to healthcare, the book shows how social prescribing can provide a direct pathway to improving community health, embracing connection and challenging inequality. Written by a practicing GP, and illustrated through practical guidance, it demonstrates how this can offer a cost-effective, preventative means to improving health outcomes, enabling communities to be more resilient when confronting major issues such as climate change or pandemics. Building to a case study of how these methods were used in one town, Ross-on-Wye, the book will be invaluable reading for those working in healthcare, public health, local authorities, and the voluntary sector, as well as students and researchers interested in these areas. Cover Endorsement Page Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents List of figures List of tables Foreword Preface Introduction Notes Chapter 1: Community health What is community? Support Groups Bridges and bonds Individualism Media Social capital and health Measuring social capital Notes Chapter 2: Health and its determinants Illness and disease Social determinants of health Inequality How do social determinants affect health? Microbiome Adverse childhood experiences Physiology of trauma Trauma-informed communities Resilience Notes Chapter 3: Disorders of society Loneliness Dementia Mental health Diagnosis Distress Symptomatology Does more healthcare make us more healthy? Salutogenesis and wellbeing Notes Chapter 4: Healthcare structures Prevention or cure? Specialist care Care closer to home NHS structures Integrated care systems Primary care networks Patient involvement Measuring the cost-effectiveness of care Mental health services Talking therapies Wider provision Notes Chapter 5: Prescribing society Social prescribing Social prescribers Volunteering Directory of services Referrals Assessing effectiveness Social return on investment Notes Chapter 6: Social prescriptions Faith groups Exercise and activity Nature Blue prescribing Green therapies Food and nutrition Learning Mentoring Arts and creativity Bibliotherapy Music Prescribing social capital Flow Notes Chapter 7: Social infrastructure Third places Greenspace Dementia friendly communities Road infrastructure Active by design Community engagement Ensuring true participation Power Powerlessness Empowerment Activism Notes Chapter 8: COVID-19 Communication The impacts of locking down Social capital and COVID-19 COVID-19 and inequality Politics of COVID-19 Long Covid Safely re-engaging with associational life Immunisation COVID-19 and climate crisis Lessons for the next crisis Notes Chapter 9: Planetary health Depletion of the ozone layer Air quality Fertiliser loading (nitrogen and phosphorus) Ocean acidification Freshwater use Biodiversity loss Land conversion Chemical pollution Climate change Health effects of climate change Do no harm – the impact of healthcare Costs of mitigating climate change Notes Chapter 10: Sustainable policy ‘We’ve had enough of experts’ Welfare policy Is there such a thing as society? Polarisation and anomie Meta-crisis Neoliberalism Sustainable changes How to talk about change Open data Universal basic services Circular economy Notes Chapter 11: Developing community Promoting community Community models Asset-based community development Asset mapping Representation Participation Leadership Tips Checklist: key issues in participation processes Checklist: community empowerment Notes Further resources Communities Inequality ACEs and trauma Healthcare Social prescribing Social infrastructure Planetary health Sustainable policy Community development Acknowledgements Glossary Credits Index