Monthly Archive for August, 2011

Call for Journal Editor

Published on August 30, 2011 in Headline, Journal and Newsletter. 0 Comments

The International Journal of Health, Wellness and Society seeks an editor, or team of editors, for a one-year term. This is an opportunity to make a significant contribution to what we believe will become one of the leading journals in its field, the journal’s associated conference and, more broadly, the knowledge-community which the journal and conference seek to serve.

The roles of the editor are to:

  • write an introduction for the Journal volume which would be included in the first issue for the year, and possibly on the website, the newsletter and other appropriate places or for the purposes of marketing and promotion.
  • collate papers addressing a theme of the editor’s choosing into a book, to be launched at the conference at the completion of the editor’s term. The chapters may be drawn from submissions to the journal during this or recent years, and other material as considered appropriate.
  • actively solicit manuscripts for the Journal from well-known and notable members of the community—these would could be refereed if the author wished, or regarded as ‘invited papers’.
  • assist the Commissioning Editor with suggestions of supplementary peer reviewers for specific papers (and this will never be burdensome – note that the Commissioning Editor of the Journal finalizes a majority of the peer reviewer requirements based on thematic matching and ‘mutual obligation’ principles in which all author requested to review up to three other papers).
  • promote the journal throughout their network and other associated networks.
  • maintain regular communications with the community via periodical blog posts to the community website (which feeds automatically to our email newsletter, Facebook and Twitter).

The editor will be offered a complimentary electronic subscription to the Journal, free copies of the book which they edit, an electronic subscription to the book series as well as complimentary registrations to attend the conferences at the beginning and end of their term.

Qualifications

The Editor of the Journal must possess the following attributes:

  • They will have successfully obtained higher degree, and have academic teaching and scholarly research experience in an area related to the subject matter of the Journal.
  • They will have published in this or other comparable scholarly journals.

Applicants are asked to send:

  1. a cover letter outlining their interest and relevant experience, and the ways in which you would propose to enhance the profile of the journal
  2. a curriculum vitae
  3. a special theme outline: a title with paragraph explanation.

Please send applications and supporting documentation to journals@healthandsociety.com

The deadline for applications is 26 September 2011.

Cancer’s Secrets Come Into Sharper Focus

Published on August 29, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

Photo by Tony Cenicola from The New York Times

By George Johnson from The New York Times

For the last decade cancer research has been guided by a common vision of how a single cell, outcompeting its neighbors, evolves into a malignant tumor.

Through a series of random mutations, genes that encourage cellular division are pushed into overdrive, while genes that normally send growth-restraining signals are taken offline.

With the accelerator floored and the brake lines cut, the cell and its progeny are free to rapidly multiply. More mutations accumulate, allowing the cancer cells to elude other safeguards and to invade neighboring tissue and metastasize.

These basic principles — laid out 11 years ago in a landmark paper, “The Hallmarks of Cancer,” by Douglas Hanahan and Robert A. Weinberg, and revisited in a follow-up article this year — still serve as the reigning paradigm, a kind of Big Bang theory for the field.

But recent discoveries have been complicating the picture with tangles of new detail. Cancer appears to be even more willful and calculating than previously imagined.

To Read More…

Daily Red Meat Raises Risk for Diabetes, Large Study Says

Published on August 22, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From Scientific America

Sugary soda and other sweet treats are likely not the only foods to blame for the surge in diabetes across the U.S. New research out of Harvard University supports the theory that regular red meat consumption increases the risk of getting type 2 diabetes.

An average of just one 85-gram (three-ounce) serving of unprocessed red meat—such as a medium hamburger or a small pork chop—per day increased by 12 percent the chances a person would get type 2 diabetes over the course of a decade or two. And if the meat was processed—such as a hot dog or two slices of bacon—the risk increased to 32 percent, even though serving sizes were smaller.

To Read More…

Announcing Plenary Speaker Bechara Choucair, M.D., Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health

Published on August 18, 2011 in Conference, Headline and Newsletter. 0 Comments

Photo of Bechara Choucair, M.D., Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health

We are pleased to announce that Bechara Choucair, M.D., Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health will be joining us for the 2012 Health and Wellness Conference in Chicago, IL from 10-11 March.

Appointed by Mayor Richard M. Daley on November 25, 2009, Dr. Choucair is re-shaping the department to meet the public health challenges of the 21st century.

Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Dr. Choucair earned a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Chemistry (with distinction) and a Medical Diploma from American University of Beirut.

From 1997-2000 he did his Family Practice Residency at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. In 2009 he earned a Master’s Degree in Health Care Management from the University of Texas at Dallas.

From 2001-05, Dr. Choucair served as Medical Director of Crusader Community Health in Rockford, Illinois. From 2005-09, he was Executive Director of Heartland International Health Center. He has served as Vice-chair of Community Medicine, Department of Family & Community Medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University.

Awards he has earned include the Loretta Lacey Maternal and Child Health Advocacy Award, Illinois Maternal and Child Health Coalition, 2009; Health Professions Training and Education Award, National Association of Community Health Centers, 2008; American Academy of Family Physicians Foundation, Pfizer Teacher Development Award, 2007; and Forrest Riordan Humanitarian Award, 2005.

For more information regarding our plenary speakers, please visit our website.

Recently published in the Health and Wellness Journal

Published on August 17, 2011 in Journal. 0 Comments

Recently published papers in The International Journal of Health, Wellness and Society include:


Think Healthy, Eat Healthy: Scientists Show Link Between Attention, Self-Control

Published on August 12, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

From Medical Xpress

You’re trying to decide what to eat for dinner.  Should it be the chicken and broccoli?  The super-sized fast food burger? Skip it entirely and just get some Rocky Road?Making that choice, it turns out, is a complex neurological exercise. But, according to researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), it’s one that can be influenced by a simple shifting of attention toward the healthy side of life. And that shift may provide strategies to help us all make healthier choices—not just in terms of the foods we eat, but in other areas, like whether or not we pick up a cigarette.

Their research is described in a paper published in the July 27 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

When you decide what to eat, not only does your brain need to figure out how it feels about a food’s taste versus its health benefits versus its size or even its packaging, but it needs to decide the importance of each of those attributes relative to the others. And it needs to do all of this more-or-less instantaneously.

To Read More…

Vaccines; Time for Society to Say Enough is Enough

Published on August 5, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By David Ropeik from Big Think

What does society do when one person’s behavior puts the greater community at risk? That’s a no-brainer, right? We make them stop. We pass laws, or impose economic rules, or find other way to discourage individual behaviors that threaten the greater common good. You don’t get to drive drunk. You don’t get to smoke in public places. You don’t even get to leave your house if you catch some particularly infectious disease.

Then what should we do about people who decline vaccination for themselves or their children, and put the greater public at risk by fueling the resurgence of nearly eradicated diseases? Isn’t this the same thing, one person’s perception of risk producing behaviors that put others at risk? Of course it is. Isn’t it time for society to say that in the greater public interest, we need to regulate the risk created by the fear of vaccines? Yes. It is.

To Read More…

Health and Wellness Journal second issue published

Published on August 3, 2011 in Journal and Newsletter. 0 Comments

health-journal-cover-crop3The second issue of  The International Journal of Health, Wellness and Society. has now been published.

Volume 1, Number 2 contains:

Continue reading ‘Health and Wellness Journal second issue published’