Robert M. Kaplan – författare

New research in psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and other fields is published every day, but the gap between what is known and the capacity to act on that knowledge has never been larger. Scholars and nonscholars alike face the problem of how to organize knowledge and to integrate new observations with what is already known. Ontologies - formal, explicit specifications of the meaning of the concepts and entities that scientists study - provide a way to address these and other challenges, and thus to accelerate progress in behavioral research and its application.

Ontologies help researchers precisely define behavioral phenomena and how they relate to each other and reliably classify them. They help researchers identify the inconsistent use of definitions, labels, and measures and provide the basis for sharing knowledge across diverse approaches and methodologies. Although ontologies are an ancient idea, modern researchers rely on them to codify research terms and findings in computer-readable formats and work with large datasets and computer-based analytic techniques.

Ontologies in the Behavioral Sciences: Accelerating Research and the Spread of Knowledge describes how ontologies support science and its application to real-world problems. This report details how ontologies function, how they can be engineered to better support the behavioral sciences, and the resources needed to sustain their development and use to help ensure the maximum benefit from investment in behavioral science research.

As health care costs soar there is increasing interest in examining what society and, particularly, patients receive in return for these expenditures. Optimizing Health brings together the best thinking from both sides of the Atlantic to explore these issues. It employs disciplinary perspectives from economics, ethics, philosophy, psychology, clinical practice, and epidemiology to explore various ways that value for patients have and can be determined. It concludes with a discussion of changes required in practice, research, and health care systems to maximize the outcomes received from the provision of medical care services from the patient’s perspective.

The first section of the book provides theoretical perspectives from economics and systems thinking that help us to focus on how one might determine the value of medical care for patients. The next section considers the ethical and philosophical dilemmas that face developed countries in distributing medical care. How is justice served and evidence-based medicine employed to increase the value of medical care for patients?

The section on psychology deals with measuring outcomes from the patient’s perspective and involving patients in medical decision making. Measuring quality of life and gaining valid quality of life information when patients cannot respond for themselves are important topics covered by these chapters. Other chapters consider ways that patients can become more involved in medical decision making with the expectation that this will increase the value of medical care for patients.

A major section of the book about clinical practice discusses problems that can reduce the value to patients of medical care. These include overdiagnosis, aggressive treatments that do not result in better patient outcomes, findings that earlier diagnosis does not always result in better outcomes, and the extent of medical error in treatment.

The final sections deal withcost-effectiveness analyses and applications of clinical epidemiology. The chapters include a number of original investigations and applications of new methodologies. All-in-all, the volume is must reading for practitioners, policy makers, and researchers who want to find in one place the state-of-the-art thinking and future directions of valuing medical care from the patient’s perspective.

Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars is about the costs of health care and their impact on health. The U.S. health care system is the largest sector in the biggest economy, and the US spends significantly more per capita on health care than any other country, yet it ranks last among comparison nations on the major health indicators. Within the U.S., there is evidence that regions that spend more do not have better outcomes, and some evidence suggests that quality of care is lower in the regions that spend more, not less, on health care.

Robert Kaplan takes the controversial position that mass markets have been created for services that may offer little or no benefit to patients. Many of these markets are for preventive medicine, making healthy people a market for expensive pharmaceutical products and tests. These include cancer screening tests and medications to control blood pressure, cholesterol, and glucose. Kaplan forcefully argues that the overuse of medications and tests runs up the costs of health care. As more employers drop health insurance for their employees when costs accelerate, the expanded use of ineffective preventive medicine may have the unintended consequence of increasing the number of uninsured patients, potentially damaging the health of others in the community.

The concluding chapters of Disease, Diagnoses, and Dollars offer suggestions for policy makers and for patients. Methods for systematically evaluating the cost-effectiveness of new guidelines are discussed. The final chapter provides practical suggestions to enable patients to share in decisions about treatments or tests that can have uncertain benefits.

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of death and illness in the United States, and though much progress has been made in reducing cardiac risk factors, obesity and diabetes mellitus are on the rise. Preventing Illness Among People With Coronary Heart Disease explores recent advances in drug treatments for CAD risk factors and how these interventions can play an important role in improving the length and quality of patients’lives by addressing health behaviors and the need for behavioral change. This advanced text shows readers how mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, and alcoholism interplay with patients’physical health and how certain interventions can improve patients’outlook and health status.Preventing Illness Among People With Coronary Heart Disease brings together researchers from a variety of disciplines to address subjects critical to secondary and tertiary preventive care for patients with coronary heart disease (CHD). This outstanding volume concentrates on studies from three major areas to help primary care practitioners and family practice physicians intervene successfully with risky behaviors among their patients prone to or afflicted with coronary artery disease. These include the effects of heart disease on patients’mental health and quality of life and the role of formal behavioral interventions in promoting health among patients with heart disease.Readers of Preventing Illness Among People With Coronary Heart Disease acquire a solid understanding of the factors influencing CAD patients’behavioral patterns and mental states and how the prevalence of CAD can be reduced. Among the vital topics readers learn about are:

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of death and illness in the United States, and though much progress has been made in reducing cardiac risk factors, obesity and diabetes mellitus are on the rise. Preventing Illness Among People With Coronary Heart Disease explores recent advances in drug treatments for CAD risk factors and how these interventions can play an important role in improving the length and quality of patients’lives by addressing health behaviors and the need for behavioral change. This advanced text shows readers how mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, and alcoholism interplay with patients’physical health and how certain interventions can improve patients’outlook and health status.Preventing Illness Among People With Coronary Heart Disease brings together researchers from a variety of disciplines to address subjects critical to secondary and tertiary preventive care for patients with coronary heart disease (CHD). This outstanding volume concentrates on studies from three major areas to help primary care practitioners and family practice physicians intervene successfully with risky behaviors among their patients prone to or afflicted with coronary artery disease. These include the effects of heart disease on patients’mental health and quality of life and the role of formal behavioral interventions in promoting health among patients with heart disease.Readers of Preventing Illness Among People With Coronary Heart Disease acquire a solid understanding of the factors influencing CAD patients’behavioral patterns and mental states and how the prevalence of CAD can be reduced. Among the vital topics readers learn about are:

What psychological and environmental forces have an impact on health? How does behavior contribute to wellness or illness? This comprehensive volume answers these questions and others with a state-of-the-art overview of theory, research, and practice at the interface of psychology and health. Leading experts from multiple disciplines explore how health and health behaviors are shaped by a wide range of psychological processes and social-environmental factors. The book describes exemplary applications in the prevention and clinical management of today''s most pressing health risks and diseases, including coronary heart disease, depression, diabetes, cancer, chronic pain, obesity, sleep disturbances, and smoking. Featuring succinct, accessible chapters on critical concepts and contemporary issues, the Handbook integrates psychological perspectives with cutting-edge work in preventive medicine, epidemiology, public health, genetics, nursing, and the social sciences.