About the Book
This unique book will open the reader's eyes to otherwise invisible relationships in public health systems, taking them all the way from the basics of a systems approach to complex structures. Not only will the reader learn how to use computer models to unravel the mysteries of government health policy, demography, or epidemiology, but the book also teaches how to build models to solve any problem of a complex nature. It covers selected problems in detail from topics, such as epidemiology, pharmaceutical business, government regulatory policy, health care provider staffing, capacity planning, vaccination, and national health policy.
About the Author :
Professor Marek Susta holds PhDs in Neuroscience and Psychology, and habilitation in Public Health. His medical research interests include psychiatry, neurology, internal medicine, epidemiology and sleep medicine. In addition, his consulting work involves complex public policy, military, and business issues.
Review :
'Professor Marek Susta is not only a respected expert in the SD field, medical and social sciences and psychological disciplines; luckily, he is also a skilful storyteller, refreshing some more difficult paragraphs with sparkles of side stories, historical contexts, humour and even irony. Reading the later, professional chapters slowly leads you to develop a new approach to understanding complexities you though you already knew. For a professional planner, policy writer and decision-maker in public health, this book is a must.'Lubomir Kostron, PhDAssociate Professor, Masaryk University, Czech Republic'The book is very relevant to the field of public health. The first part is universal, explaining the use of systems thinking and the principles of problem solving 'in motion'. The book deals in detail, for example, with the projected evolution of demographic change and its impact on health care delivery, epidemiological issues, vaccination, the consequences of capacity constraints in the health care system, and even psychiatric and neurological issues. The book is logically structured, very nicely and vividly illustrated and can be highly recommended to health facility management, health policy makers at all levels and, of course, to students of public health and epidemiology.'Karol Kralinsky, MD, PhDProfessor of Public Health and Head of 2nd Pediatric Department, Childrens University Hospital Banska Bystrica, Slovakia'The field of public health deals with complex issues, including demography, access to health care, medical supplies, medicines, medical personnel and costs, epidemiology and sustainability, and undoubtedly requires the application of an approach that allows the incorporation all of the above into a functional policy. The textbook A Systems perspective of Public Health not only covers the mentioned topics, but also guides the reader, step by step, from the basics of a systems approach to the ability to describe, design and test complex policies at the level of primary care practices, hospitals and the state. It does not avoid the issues of healthcare staff workload and its impact on personal lives, dealing not only with minutes, money and headcount, but also covering soft variables such as motivation, satisfaction, willingness, fear and conformity. The book can be confidently recommended to anyone involved in designing and testing public health practices – from single practice design, to large hospital emergencies and even national health policy.'Professor Vlastimil Kozon, PhD Vienna Medical Academy, Austria
