Joav Merrick – författare

In this Yearbook 2016 we cover several aspects of health issues in neonates, economy and declining birth rates, child health in the slums of India, youth leadership issues in Hong Kong, virtual environments, rehabilitation and special needs populations, and finally research on environmental and child health. These chapters will help stimulate more interest and effort in developing and implementing programs for children and youth to ensure a good and positive development for raising future generations of children.

Throughout a lifetime, an individual meets an innumerable amount of people with only a few having any major impact on their own life and the path that they will follow afterwards. Many people owe a lot of gratitude and debt to Manny (the Israeli pediatrician Emanuel Chigier, 1928-2017) for his inspiration, mentorship and friendship, which will follow those who knew him for the rest of their lives; with this book, the authors salute and give tribute to Manny, who is no longer among us. They have gathered articles and chapters relevant to childhood and adolescent health, a topic close to Manny's heart, from all over the world. The authors hope this will give inspiration to others to follow in his footsteps and continue to carry the torch in the field of pediatric medicine.

Chronic Disease and Disability: The Pediatric Lung is written for the primary care clinician to help update the knowledge of pediatric pulmonology (pulmo, pulmonis [Latin for "e;lung"e;] and II IIa, -logia [Greek for "e;study of"e;]) in the early 21st century. It acknowledges some of the amazing stepping stones of science over time concerning the current understanding of pediatric pulmonary medicine. The current and future shortage of pediatric pulmonologists necessitates steady, rejuvenated information on asthma, cystic fibrosis, pneumonia and other pulmonologic disorders for primary care clinicians as they care for the children and adolescents with complex respiratory dilemmas and disorders. In view of this shortage and the rapidly increasing knowledge in this field, as well as understanding indications for referral to pediatric pulmonologists in the early 21st century, au courant assiduous information aimed at primary care clinicians in these areas becomes increasingly important.

In this Yearbook 2017 we cover several aspects of health issues in children and youth. We start out with integration of autistic students into the higher education system, nutrition aspects, HIV, antibiotics and then two whole sections on disability and abuse and finally many aspects of youth suicide, prevention and experience of interventions. We hope that these chapters can help stimulate more interest and effort in developing and implementing programs for children and youth to ensure a good and positive development for raising future generations of children.

In this yearbook for 2017 we present you with some of the latest research on pain management. We start out with a section on psychosocial and ethical issue in cancer care. Then we move into issue on palliative care in cancer and then a whole section on biomarkers in oncology. The last section is about the use of medical cannabis in cancer care, relieving various symptoms and the use in people with post-traumatic stress syndrome. We hope that you as the reader will find the information of interest and useful in your work and research.

In the Alternative Medicine Yearbook 2017 we bring papers and recent research on psychotherapeutic interventions with children and adolescents, family therapy model for pediatricians, psychopharmacology and other interesting papers like the long-term music effect on blood pressure, heart rate, anxiety and depression. In the next section papers on virtual reality technologies for rehabilitiation and in the third section papers about children, disability and abuse, while we end up with research on virtual rehabilitation system designs. We hope this Yearbook will be of interest to the professional reader.

While much needs to be done in order to minimize the suicide attempts and suicides of adolescents, the work of Stop Youth Suicide (SYS) campaign and the comprehensive grassroots' approach is showing signs of success in the state of Kentucky. The 2013 national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) showed that for the first time, indicators of youth suicide in the state are at or below the national average, where they were previously always above. In the three rural counties where the school systems have partnered with SYS and the Division of Adolescent Medicine in Lexington, there is an actual absence of completed suicides compared to the average of three per year prior to this partnership. In order to maintain and improve that statistic, we must ensure that students do not have easy access to weapons, guns and drugs by ensuring that these items are properly stored in homes where children are present. Kentucky's educators must continue to develop ways to provide safe and supportive school environments. In this book, the authors have gathered presentations from the 2017 Annual Stop Youth Suicide Campaign Conference, which we hope will be of interest and help to the readers.

Public Health Yearbook 2017 present research on: adolescent alcohol use in the Caribbean region; discussion about how to break the cycle of child and adolescent environmental health disparities affecting development; serious debate about parental refusal of childhood vaccinations; food security; social and health issues surrounding Chinese adolescents; and a world tour of suicide ideation in school-age teenagers. We hope this Yearbook and the research will be of interest to our readers.

Young people are expected to learn "e;academic"e; or "e;technical"e; knowledge in a manufacturing economy, which can be referred to as "e;hard skills"e; (for example, to produce a car through assembly lines). In many countries today, countries have been shifting from a manufacturing economy to a service economy, which has resulted in young people expecting to gain skills that are non-technical and widely transferable to different settings. This skills are referred to as "e;soft skills"e;, which are basically related to the qualities of an individual. In this book, the authors include several chapters on soft skills development in adolescents with particular reference to Chinese culture. This book includes conclusions based on the data collected from the third year of the community-based P.A.T.H.S. Project in Hong Kong. It also discusses dreams, aspirations, hopes and related constructs in Chinese adolescents. Additionally, the authors also present chapters on the relationships between pornography consumption and positive youth development qualities; and the last few chapters document attempts to promote soft skills in university students. With the emergence and consolidation of a service or knowledge-based economy, the desired qualities in adolescents have changed. Obviously, soft skills development plays an important role in the employability of young people. It is also vital to the complete development of young people as individuals in the present and future.

This book is based on the conference on “Movement and Cognition” held in July 2018 at the Joseph B. Martin Center at Harvard Medical School in Boston, where an opportunity was provided for researchers and practitioners from various disciplines to share their knowledge and experience in an academic environment that has supported learning and social change for hundreds of years. In this book, readers will find all the abstracts from this conference gathered together in this publication, which the authors hope will be of interest to the scientific community. Joav Merrick, MD, MMedSci, DMSc, born and educated in Denmark is professor of pediatrics, child health and human development affiliated with the Division of Pediatrics, Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center, Mt Scopus Campus, Jerusalem, Israel, Kentucky Children’s Hospital, University of Kentucky, Lexington, United States and professor of public health at the Center for Healthy Development, School of Public Health, Georgia State University, Atlanta, United States, the former medical director of the Division for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services, Jerusalem and the founder and director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Israel. Gerry Leisman, MD, PHD, is an Israeli neuroscientist educated in the United Kingdom and the United States in Medicine, Neuroscience, and Biomedical Engineering at Manchester University. He additionally received a PhD in Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering from Union University in 1979. He is currently Full Professor and Research Fellow at the University of Haifa in Israel. He is also concurrently Director of the National Institute for Brain and Rehabilitation Sciences, a global research institute with laboratories in Gilbert, Arizona, United States, Nazareth and Zevulun, Israel and in Havana, Cuba. He holds a Full Professorship in Rehabilitation Sciences from Israel’s Council of Higher Education (Malag). He concurrently is Professor of Restorative Neurology at the University of Medical Sciences in Havana, Cuba. He is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Functional Neurology, Rehabilitation, and Ergonomics.

This book is based on the conference on “Movement and Cognition” held in July 2019 at the Tel Aviv University in Israel, where an opportunity was provided for researchers, clinicians and practitioners from various disciplines to share their knowledge and experience in an academic environment. In this book you will find all the abstracts from this conference gathered in one publication. We believe that movement facilitates cognition throughout the life span and hope that this book will be of interest to both researcher, clinicians, practitioners and other people who are interested in the issue of movement and the brain.

From Hippocratic medicine through modern theory, the concept and physiopathology of pain has been developed from religious and philosophical to a more scientific concept. Different cultures have developed different words to express pain and we are still far from a comprehensive understanding of pain. In clinical practice, a good understanding of history is important and multidisciplinary collaboration should be used to help the patient with both acute and chronic pain. In this book we have gathered evidence from international researchers and practitioners involved with both acute and chronic pain issues with the hope that this information will be of use to the reader.

This book furnishes a rich description and discussion on the theory and practice of DPYD (digital positive youth development) games, in particular, design, implementation, and initial evaluation. Chapters show a concerted and creative effort in providing preventive measures on commonly found adolescent developmental issues. They also demonstrate that the newly developed and specially designed games are in general efficient and effective measures to promote youth development and prevent some common adolescent problems from deteriorating in contemporary urban societies. Initial users’ qualitative feedback supports their effectiveness. Findings related to motivational variables such as self-efficacy, situational interest, goal orientation, and engagement variables are discussed. It is noteworthy that the game on interpersonal relationship has a special feature of promoting cross-cultural understanding of the values behind Chinese and Western (English-speaking only) cultures.

Developmental disabilities or neurodevelopmental disabilities (includes intellectual disability) are a diverse group of chronic disorders that begin at anytime during the development process (including conception, birth, and growth) up to 22 years of age and last throughout an individual’s lifetime. Major disabilities include intellectual disabilities, learning disabilities, communication disorders, autism spectrum disorders, cerebral palsy, and neural tube defects. We provide an introduction and review epidemiology of major disabilities and have also gathered international research from United States, Australia, Ghana, Jordan, Ireland, Italy and India on various aspects of intellectual and developmental disability, which we hope will be of interest to our readers.

A survey of the literature showed that most research studies in children, adolescents and families have been conducted in Western contexts, which may not be applicable to non-Western contexts. Hence, research on children, adolescents and families in non-Western contexts is particularly important and we therefore need to enrich human development and family research in the Chinese context. In this book, we included 16 chapters to demonstrate the advances in Chinese children, adolescents, and family research. And it is our sincere hope that through this book, we can attempt to conduct more empirical studies that can help to promote the research atmosphere and enrich the knowledge of Chinese children, adolescent, and family research in a larger context.

Disability research is important for the individual and the family, but certainly also for the society that has to adapt and facilitate an easier life and better service for this segment of our populations. For example, research showed significant disparities in the prevalence of disability between urban and rural residents, which can guide society to provide better service. Epidemiology and survey research can be important tools for public health focus and intervention and guide policy makers to allocate budgets and service facilities and expertise. In this book, we have gathered research on various aspects of disability from Malaysia, India, Ghana, Kenya, Portugal, Bangladesh, Thailand and Nigeria, which we hope will be of interest to the reader.

In this book we have gathered recent research related to cancer and cancer treatment and care. We also present research on pharmacy in cancer treatment, a few papers on breast cancer, research on bone metastases, radiation therapy and some pilot programs on telemedicine in cancer care, prostate cancer screening in Guyana, cost analysis of metastatic non-small cell lung cancer in Canada and early oncology rehabilitation for lymphoma patients in Singapore. We hope this research will be of interest to our readers.

In this book we wanted to identify trajectories of health and their associations with lifestyle factors in a national representative cohort study of older Mexicans. We used secondary data from the Study of Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE) second wave 2014-15 in Mexico. The average healthy life expectancy of older Mexicans has actually declined over the past decade. Limited access to nutrition resources and unhealthy dietary styles, due to high poverty, have led to increasing chronic diseases like diabetes among older Mexican adults, which in turn create further financial problems as a result of high out-of-pocket expenditure on healthcare. This book deals with angina pectoris, stroke, oral health, eye health, alcohol use, tobacco use, depression, loneliness, arthritis, back pain, obesity, fruit and vegetable consumption, and sleep. We hope that findings from these papers may aid public policy and programmes for older adults in Mexico.

Disability can be transient, partly or permanent and take many forms and shapes. Disability can be a mental or physical illness or a condition that affects a major life function over the long term. Disability is a term also used in the labor market and worker compensation field to describe any lasting impairment that remains after a worker has been treated and allowed time to recover. A permanent disability could be as severe as the loss of an eye or as moderate as a broken leg that healed leaving the inability to walk normally. In this book we have gathered research on various aspects of disability and rehabilitation from Spain, United States of America, Brazil, Singapore, Cyprus, Malaysia, Italy, Japan and Manipal, which we hope will be of interest to the reader.

Much research has been conducted to provide researchers and hearing healthcare professionals with updated information in regard to hearing assessments, results interpretation and case management. This ongoing research is particularly imperative to guide clinicians with optimized methods in assessing and managing pediatric patients with hearing impairment and disability. As such, tremendous research efforts have been made in determining the most optimum methods in assessing hearing using both subjective and objective tests. Since hearing loss can occur due to disrupted peripheral and/or central auditory pathway, there is also a growing interest to study children with auditory processing disorder (APD). Even though notable achievements have been observed in understanding APD, more research is required, particularly in establishing a gold standard APD test and its specific interventions. Aditionally, having an objective test such as speech-evoked auditory brainstem response is beneficial to understand how speech sounds are encoded within the brainstem region in hearing-impaired children, as well as in those with compromised neural function. In this book, we have gathered research from Malaysia and India in this field and hope it will be of interest to our readers.

The “Global School-based Student Health Survey (GSHS)” is a World Health Organization and United States “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)” collaborative effort in helping countries to assess various behavioural risk and protective factors in their communities, including mental health, suicidal behaviour, protective factors, substance use, violence and unintentional injury” among adolescents. In this book we used the most recent GSHS data (2016-2017) to describe a range of interpersonal and self-directed violence among adolescents in 15 countries: Liberia, Lebanon, Myanmar, Jamaica, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Paraguay, Bhutan, Dominican Republic, Vanuatu, United Arab Emirates, Trinidad and Tobago, Tonga, Morocco and Suriname. The results of the various papers will inform stakeholders of the relevance of school and youth health programmes and related policies targeting interpersonal and self-directed violence in the adolescent population.

Nigeria – a pluralistic society – is a sub-Saharan Africa country, home to about 200 million people from 371 cultural tribes. All tribes in Nigeria have their specific cultural beliefs and practices. As a matter of fact, many of these practices had been in existence for hundreds of years, even before British colonization (1800-1960). There exists a strong interrelationship between the society and health. Some practices in the society have negative health implications while some do not. Unfortunately, many of the traditional or cultural practices in the Nigerian society have more associated harms than benefits. In this book we have gathered research that describes health and health aspects of modern Nigeria, which we hope will be of interest to the reader.

Over the past decade, the regional governments in Grenada and the Caribbean region, together with public health and clinical institutions, have turned their attention to tacking the rising prevalence of non-communicable chronic diseases, in particular, hypertension, diabetes and cancer. The emergence and rising prevalence of these lifestyle diseases are suggestive of a correlation with the cultural transformation that overtook the region. In the first quarter of 2020, the region’s health landscape turned another corner with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Improving the health status of Caribbean populations is at the forefront of the agenda of the regional public health institutions and, in producing this book, we provide support for evidenced-based public health practice in the Caribbean region. We hope readers find the issue informative to understanding the public health situation in the Caribbean and will motivate affirmative action to improve public health.

The Corona hype, the Corona panic, has manifested the common cold as a brand new disease. What we present here is the psychosomatic hypothesis for COVID-19. We are living in a time of change. It is easy to assume that we live in a safe and stabile world, but the Corona COVID-19 pandemic has shown the whole world that this is not the case. Mighty forces changes our way of living, thinking and things changes fast. It is difficult to understand what is happening, for you need to be an expert in many different fields in order to really get it: medicine, economy and politics. You even need psychology, sociology and maybe even consciousness-research to fully comprehend what we are dealing with in the 2019-2020 Corona pandemic. This book tries to give you sufficient background in different areas to at least get an idea of what is happening around us in all parts of the world.

Marijuana (cannabis) remains a controversial drug in the 21st century, even though the plant has been known to human beings for at least 10,000 years with hemp-woven clothing material recorded in ancient China in 8,000 BCE and hemp foods in ancient China in 6000 BCE. It has been used for cancer pain, neuropathic pain and spasticity with multiple sclerosis, and other indications such as chronic pain and also in epilepsy management and current research is evaluating the anti-epileptic role. The potential role of specific cannabinoids for medical benefit will be revealed as the 21st century matures. However, potential dangerous adverse effects from smoking marijuana are well known and should be clearly taught to a public often confused by a media-driven, though false message and promise of benign pot consumption. In this book we will review not only cannabis, but pain and disorders causing pain in children and adolescents.

In this book we have brought together research from international clinicians, practitioners and researchers from various backgrounds and communities. Some of the papers were presented at the annual Stop Youth Suicide conference in Lexington, Kentucky in November 2019 and some at the Fifth International Conference on Child Health, Development and Welfare in Jerusalem, Israel during December 2019. The topics in this international potpourri of presentations are from a college experience program for people with intellectual disabilities in New York, migration from South Korea, which has emerged as one of the world''s largest diaspora nations, discussions on abuse head trauma and adolescent suicide to risk factors for impaired early childhood development in rural India. We hope this collection of papers will be of interest to our international audience and hope you will find useful information from this research.

In the year 2008 the new "e;Journal of Pain Management"e; was begun under the auspices of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Israel in collaboration with Nova Science Publishers in New York with the hopes of facilitating an outlet for peer-reviewed papers in the areas of pain and pain management from a holistic, practical, and clinical point of view. This yearbook for 2008 contains selected research published from the "e;Journal of Pain Management"e; by leading researchers from all over the world.

The early years in the life of a child are critical for cognitive, social and emotional development. It is therefore important that we make sure that children grow up in an environment where their social, emotional and educational needs are met. Children who grow up in an environment where their developmental needs are not met are at risk for compromised health, well-being and sometimes developmental delays. Society must therefore work to ensure that children develop in safe, loving and secure environments. This yearbook compiles the work to be done in 2012 with a broad research agenda on a global basis, addressing questions ranging from policy to practice, and spanning the developmental spectrum from human genetics, infancy and early childhood, to adolescence and adulthood.

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are common neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by a triad of impairments in reciprocal social interactions, verbal and non-verbal communication deficits with repetitive and stereotyped behaviors. The disorder may adversely impact not just the affected child, but also his/her family members. Currently there is no effective means for prevention, no biomarkers for early diagnosis and no specific treatment approach or a drug that can "e;cure"e; the disorder. Interest in ASD has exploded in the past decade following the vast increase in the prevalence of ASD to 1:100-1:150 in the most recent reports. The dramatic increase in ASD cases has been accompanied by an increase in public and professional awareness and an abundance of new research and treatment strategies. Autism is probably not a single disorder, but rather reflects many different disorders with broad behavioral phenotypes causing atypical development.