APHA Press continued to expand this spring, with two new titles joining the lineup.
With the third edition of “Confronting Violence: Answering Questions About the Epidemic Destroying America’s Homes and Communities,” author George Gellert offers a comprehensive, straightforward and easy-to-read exploration and treatment of the epidemic of intentional injury and violence in the United States.
Americans remain “appropriately concerned” about violence, Gellert, MD, MPH, MPA, told The Nation’s Health.
“The continuing school shootings, bullying and youth violence, the chronic sexual abuse of children by trusted adults, the abductions and sexual assault of young girls by predatory strangers and the murderous rampages by individuals at their places of work have drawn public attention across the nation and heightened concerns about violence,” said Gellert, a medical epidemiologist and public health practitioner.
While there is an abundance of research by government agencies and academics about various forms of violence, “Confronting Violence” distills and summarizes the vast body of data and insights into a readily accessible, readable and useful single-reference volume, Gellert said. Cutting across the major forms of interpersonal violence and addressing violence that affects diverse segments of society, the book provides a one-stop resource for professionals who encounter victims of violence and their families in their daily work, including public health and health care providers, mental health and counseling professionals, social work and service professionals, and attorneys and law enforcement officers. Using non-technical language and addressing concerns and issues for victims of violence, the evidence-driven book can also help individuals and families directly affected by violence to identify, understand, cope with and prevent violence.
The third edition updates epidemiological, profile, risk factor, situational, trend and outcome data on the varied forms of interpersonal violence, Gellert said. Chapters on youth and school violence, including bullying, have been expanded. New sections provide information about electronic aggression, including cyberstalking and cyberbullying. Each chapter lists updated national and state-by-state resource and referral agency contact information and provides links to useful Web sites with in-depth information about the various forms of violence.
New book focuses on Maryland advocate
During two decades organizing campaigns in Maryland, veteran community organizer and strategist Vincent DeMarco took on tobacco companies and the National Rifle Association, leading successful efforts to raise cigarette taxes to prevent youth smoking and taking on the gun lobby in six statewide campaigns. Standing up for thousands of low-income workers, DeMarco was also a key force in Maryland’s effort to extend health care to hundreds of thousands of low-income workers.
With the release of “The DeMarco Factor: Transforming Public Will into Political Power,” co-published by APHA and Vanderbilt University Press, author Michael Pertschuk, JD, shares DeMarco’s strategies and leadership with public health and social justice advocates.
A former chair of the Federal Trade Commission, Pertschuk himself spent 20 years fighting for public health laws — from tobacco control and children’s advertising to auto safety — often against “a stone wall” of corporate lobbies, he said.
“I decided to seek out and write about successful, innovative, community-based campaign advocates and organizers,” Pertschuk, an APHA member, told The Nation’s Health.
When DeMarco, who is an APHA member, successfully organized Marylanders to pass legislation forcing Wal-Mart to double the health care benefits it paid its workers in 2005, Pertschuk decided it was time to “study ‘Vinny’ more intensely.”
“I learned more from watching, listening and studying Vinny, and his great team of colleagues, than in 40 years of campaigning and writing — and I had more fun,” Pertschuk said.
The first section of “The DeMarco Factor” tells the stories of three DeMarco campaigns. The second section draws from the case stories to illuminate simple but tested step-by-step strategic planning guidance and essential leadership for successful public health campaigns, even against the toughest opposition.
For his part, DeMarco, JD, MA, president of the Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative, said he strongly encourages “those who need to overcome powerful vested interests to accomplish their public health goals to read this book.”
According to DeMarco, public health advocates and students of advocacy can learn from the book “precisely what the subheading says: how to transform the public will behind public health measures into the kind of political power that can make them a reality.”
To buy “Confronting Violence, Third Edition” and “The DeMarco Factor,” visit www.aphabookstore.org. For more information, e-mail apha{at}pbd.com.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
