社会福祉・社会保障 — 全 下位分類

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is a transformative force in smart healthcare. It can produce contents virtually indistinguishable from human-created material, with the power to redefine healthcare and revolutionize how medical science interacts with technology. This book presents the potential applications and benefits of generative AI in healthcare and discusses its execution challenges and ethical aspects.

Generative Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare: Current Practices and Future Development starts by reviewing the past and then discussing the present of generative AI-based systems and the potential challenges the future might bring. It then highlights the integration of generative AI with IoT and blockchain technologies along with offering case studies. The book explores how to integrate augmented and virtual reality into generative AI-based healthcare and covers the development of an effective machine algorithm for generative AI-based healthcare, as well as the design and implementation of generative adversarial networks (GANs) in healthcare systems.

Discussions about data security and ergonomic design for healthcare products are also included in the book. This book will provide a platform for the past, present, and future of generative AI and will help researchers and healthcare practitioners generate more robust solutions.

This book highlights the complexities and multi-dimensionalities of child adoption in India by challenging the prevalent adoption theories. It is the only book to lend a voice to adopted children and adults. It foregrounds the narratives of many families in their experiences of adoption together with the author's personal account as an adoptive parent.

The volume outlines parenting practices that lead to success and well-being achieved through adoption. The first unit deals with the 'macro' delineation of child adoption, while the second discusses the 'micro' concerns of parents and children in the Indian context. It also analyses the socio-political and socio-cultural contexts within which adoptions take place. It includes excerpts from the guidelines for in-country adoption, the Juvenile Justice Act and the Hague Convention on inter-country adoptions.

This book would be useful to the students, researchers, and faculty of Social Work, Human Development, Education, Psychology, Sociology and Law. It will also be an indispensable companion to adoptive parents (domestic and inter-country), adoptees (domestic and abroad), psychologists, therapists, psychiatrists, and policy makers.

Introduces students to the study of the social forces that shape mental health and empowers the next generation to make an impact on mental health management

As the prevalence of mental health issues worldwide continues to grow, an active area of sociology is investigating the social causes and consequences of mental health and illness. Young people are especially vulnerable to the current mental health crisis-they are more frequently experiencing social isolation, family stressors, difficulties establishing social relationships, and heightened levels of anxiety, depression, loneliness, and suicidal thoughts.

Using a relatable and accessible narrative style, Sociological Insights on Mental Health and Distress helps students understand the connections between mental health issues and their social and structural determinants. Integrating classical and contemporary sociological theory, this concise textbook examines mental health from four key sociological perspectives: social context, social integration, stress, and stigma.

Special emphasis is placed on the role of social media and cyberbullying in mental health concerns, global sources of anxiety such as COVID-19 and climate change, and emerging topics including neuro-divergencies in mental health problems and suicide in LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities.

Supported by a wealth of pedagogical tools and an extensive companion website, Sociological Insights on Mental Health and Distress is the perfect textbook for undergraduate courses in the sociology of mental health, health and illness, psychological and sociological deviance, and social problems, as well as interdisciplinary courses in criminal justice, public health, social work, and psychology.

A concise, practical guide to the mental health effects of COVID-19 and its treatments

Managing Mental Illness After COVID-19 Infection is a resource for people affected by COVID-19 and their loved ones. As the long-term effects, especially the psychiatric effects, evolve and become more common, people are increasingly searching for answers. This book reviews presentations and treatments for mental illnesses post-COVID-19. Readers will learn about the use of medications, supplements, and behavioral interventions to address these conditions.

This engaging and practical book includes numerous tables and other illustrations for easy reference. It provides enough medical detail for patients and their caregivers to better understand the symptoms they may experience, as well as the best ways to investigate and treat those symptoms. However, it is not too complex for the general reader, making it perfect as a standalone book for patients and their families.

• Learn how and why many people struggle with mental illness following COVID-19 infection
• Discover what your symptoms may indicate and get advice on how to pursue diagnosis and treatment
• Find a doctor who can understand and manage the mental and behavioral consequences of COVID-19
• Get up to speed on the psychiatric and psychosocial effects of COVID-19 infection

This is an excellent resource for the public, policymakers, clinicians, counselors, social workers, and behavioral health coaches that could benefit from the latest research on the psychiatric effects of COVID-19.

Offering an in-depth exploration of the security challenges posed by COVID-19, Gunaratna, Aslam, and their contributors present a comprehensive collection of thematic and country-specific analyses on post-pandemic planetary health strategies.

This book critically evaluates the global challenges and responses to COVID-19, examining its impact across key sectors such as security, defense, trade, health, economy, and religion. Through empirical evidence and diverse case studies, it analyzes the strengths and shortcomings of international efforts and offers thoughtful approaches and solutions to fostering a balanced and resilient planet for future generations.

Essential for students and scholars of planetary health, international relations, humanitarian affairs, strategic and defense management, policy studies, and global health, this book also serves as a valuable resource for policymakers, government ministries, and agencies seeking insights into effective global practices.

This book provides an in-depth explanation of public pension plan management and the decision-making processes surrounding pension policies within state and local governments in the United States. It addresses the intricate balance between securing retirement benefits for public employees and ensuring the fiscal sustainability of pension systems and their sponsoring governments. The book begins with an introduction to the purpose and significance of public pension systems, establishing a foundation for understanding key pension decisions. Using a logic model framework, the authors assess how environmental factors, stakeholders, and legal constraints shape decisions in pension management. The book identifies five core goals for public pension management - benefit sufficiency, cost affordability, funding sustainability, asset management efficiency, and governance quality - emphasizing the relationships among these objectives.

Detailed chapters cover investment policies, actuarial processes, and the design of benefits and contributions, explaining the financial and actuarial bases necessary for sound pension decisions. Pension reform efforts, including the transition from defined benefit plans to defined contribution, cash-balance, and hybrid plans, are examined in depth, highlighting the reasons for reforms and analyzing their impacts on the employees and employers. The book concludes with ten takeaways for effective pension plan management and addresses emerging challenges such as fiscal pressures, inflation, and changing demographics. With practical implications grounded in research, this book serves as an essential resource for pension board members, pension system administrators, government officials, legislators and their staff, professionals, researchers, and students involved in public pension plan management.

Care is the foundation of organic life. But its fate in the economy is precarious and uncertain. The labour of care is arduous and underpaid. Yet without it health and vitality are impossible. Care itself ends up leading a curious dual life. In our hearts it's honoured as an irreducible good. But in the market it's treated as a second class citizen - barely recognised in the relentless rush for productivity and wealth.

How did we arrive in this dysfunctional place? And what can we do to change things? What would it mean to take health seriously as a societal goal? What would it take to adopt care as an organising principle in the economy?

Renowned ecological economist Tim Jackson sets out to tackle these questions in this timely and deeply personal book. His journey travels through the history of medicine, the economics of capitalism and the philosophical underpinnings of health. He unpacks the gender politics of care, revisits the birthplace of a universal dream and confronts the demons that prevent us from realising it.

Irreverent, insightful and profoundly inquisitive, The Care Economy offers a bold and accessible manifesto for a healthier and more humane society.

Also available as an audiobook, narrated by the author.

Winner of the 2026 Richard Titmuss Book Award.

Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.

Health inequality has reached a crisis point. Your income or hometown can have a devastating impact on how well and how long you live. This injustice, exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, continues as the cost of living rises and other sources of inequity grow. What can be done to make things better?

This book, written by the authors behind the award-winning The Unequal Pandemic, explores successful international case studies of governments reducing health inequalities - from the USA and Brazil to Germany and England - stretching over fifty years from the 1960s to the 2000s.

Essential reading for students and scholars of public health and the social sciences, and for health and social care professionals and policy makers, this book demonstrates that reducing health inequalities is possible and provides a roadmap for today's governments to follow.

This book is based on China's poverty alleviation work and combines social work expertise with anti-poverty research to provide a blueprint as a reference for preventing poverty return in the post-2020 era, promoting rural governance, and effectively linking poverty eradication and rural revitalization. Through a two-year participatory cooperation, the book, taking the targeted poverty alleviation pilot project named "Warmhearted Home Delivery" in T District(Xiamen City, Fujian Province) as a case study, finds that social work against poverty among the deeply impoverished needs to base on a "fact-ethic" two-dimensional perspective integrating risk with ability to achieve the trinary combination of the population classification to prevent the risk of returning to poverty, the exploiting the potential of families to solve the living difficulties, and the environmental-supported community multi-participation assets. This book is the first professional book in China that systematically describes how to do a good job in poverty eradication and poverty return prevention for people with deep poverty. This book records the time, demonstrates the academic achievements, and focuses on people's livelihood.

Practitioners and managers in child protection often struggle to focus on the needs of children and families in the face of ever-expanding bureaucracy.

This book brings together authors from across Europe to explore the strategies and solutions that promote doing things right by those in need rather than to the letter of procedure. It argues that more flexible, community/relationship/partnership-based approaches are required to meet the needs of parents and children experiencing difficulties and risk of harm.

Essential reading for academics, practitioners, managers and policy makers in social work and child welfare, it contributes to the development of reflective thinking and spotlights the potential of co-production and co-creation.

This book is to reflect on the achievements and challenges of current poverty-alleviation practices for children in China, in order to understand and clarify the function, intervention strategies and development direction of social work in child poverty-alleviation. It systematically presents the theoretical framework and practical path of social work in child poverty-alleviation. The book has three main focuses: firstly, it reviews the theoretical analysis framework of social work in child poverty-alleviation, such as social development perspective, social integration perspective and ecological systems theory at a macro-level, as well as life course theory and resilience theory at a
micro-level; secondly, it presents the general practice path of social work in child poverty-alleviation from the perspective of practice framework, intervention path, work procedures and specific methods, exploring the key points, difficulties, methods and techniques of social work intervention in child poverty-alleviation practices through local cases in China; thirdly, based on the international social work experience in child poverty-alleviation and combined with local practices in China, it clarifies the future direction and advantages of social work in child poverty-alleviation in China.

This open access book presents insights on the resiliency strategies of at-risk vocational education and training (VET) students in the field of learning, employment and social integration, in the Baltic countries and Norway. It investigates the ways in which vocational education and training (VET) can enhance the social inclusion of young people at-risk, both in terms of combating school dropout rates, and promoting transitions between various (social) learning contexts, such as school-work transition. Book presents the findings of the analysis of available statistical data disclosing the capacities and potential of the VET systems and providers to empower vulnerable learners in the project partner countries. In the context of VET, this book examines the situations of at-risk young people as they experience, and understand themselves, in it, and explores innovative solutions to address their challenges in collaboration between themselves, their teachers, and other community actors and stakeholders. Finally, it analyses and discusses the innovative pedagogical interventions used in empowering at-risk VET students as implemented in the research project 'EmpowerVET', on the basis of the Educational Learning Lab model developed by researchers from the University of Tallinn School of Educational Sciences.

Basic income can no longer be dismissed as a utopian idea - it's being tested worldwide. But can it truly transform economies and societies?

This book dives into real-world examples, revealing how basic income reshapes lives. It explores the ripple effects of financial security-better health, stronger communities, more education, meaningful work, and engaged citizenship. By breaking the cycle of poverty, basic income unlocks access to essentials like food and housing, empowers people, and fuels long-term thinking and entrepreneurship

Tying together theory with groundbreaking evidence from real-world trials, this book shows why basic income isn't just possible-it's the vital solution to our age of crisis, paving the way for a fairer society.

This book analyses how women navigate their personal worlds during a life stage of intense changes and ruptures, within a complex and rapidly changing sociocultural context of a post-socialist society. The transition to first-time motherhood is considered a unique phase in adult development, bringing about an abundance of profound psychosocial and bodily changes. This book-length study examines these changes from a first-person perspective, with particular attention to dimensions of personal experience and functioning that are usually neglected in psychological (and even sociocultural) scholarship - embodiment and techno-material mediatedness. To account for the complex and contextualised phenomenon, the author outlines a theoretical framework that connects sociocultural psychology with phenomenology and science and technology studies. This pluralistic and interdisciplinary approach promises to move forward the way we think not only about women's experiences, pregnant and birthing bodies, and medical practices, but also the way we think about subjects, their embodied condition of existence, and their entanglements with socio-material aspects of culture.

Thompson and Cox address the key challenges of teaching in these areas as well as the complex relationship between theory and practice, putting forward a 'theorizing practice' approach. Analysing the role of sociopolitical factors, such as gender and culture, the authors explore the differences between personal and collective responses to death and loss. The book also provides extensive practical guidance in the form of over 80 exercises, tips, advice on pitfalls to avoid, and handouts to be used in class.

Teaching Death, Grief and Bereavement is a valuable resource for teachers and lecturers specialising in death, grief and bereavement, as well as educators in social work, social care, healthcare, nursing and counselling.

This book delves into the complex landscape of the Indian early childhood education system, traversing its historical roots, contemporary dynamics and future aspirations. It unveils the intrinsic needs of young learners during their formative years, underscored by the pivotal role education plays in their holistic development. Tracing the origins of the education system in India to its current state, the book navigates an evolving educational milieu, shedding light on pivotal junctures and transformative shifts. The author also envisions its trajectory for the future, encapsulating the collective aspirations for educational reform and advancement. By intertwining theoretical frameworks with real-world examples, the book offers a holistic understanding of how India nurtures its youngest citizens and prepares them for a brighter future. It will be of interest to students and scholars of early childhood education, education policy, curriculum and pedagogy, while also providing evidence-based recommendations for policymakers.

This handbook adopts a transdisciplinary approach to primary healthcare, incorporating a wide scope of perspectives and case studies from Hong Kong in China. It consists of four sections that explore the foundations, practices, development aspects of primary healthcare and systems. The book also pays particular attention to the psychosocial and humanistic contexts of primary healthcare, exploring dimensions such as misinformation in the age of social media in health communication and aspects of resilience in primary healthcare. With contributions from scholars and practitioners in areas that include family medicine, psychology, nutrition, health policy, health education, dentistry, social work, as well as Chinese medicine, it is an expansive presentation of current knowledge on healthcare in the community setting. It is an indispensable reference for policymakers, researchers, advanced students, primary healthcare professionals, community health practitioners, and health managers and educators seeking to collate the practical and philosophical aspects of healthcare, in Hong Kong particularly, but also in Greater China and Asia more broadly. Beyond its relevance to the immediate medical community, it is also a valuable text for researchers in medical law, social sciences, quality of life studies, public policy, business administration, and information technology and health communication.

This open access book studies disability inclusion in humanitarian crises. It addresses the challenges of recognizing and including persons with disabilities and indicates the degree to which disability is being mainstreamed in international law and humanitarian action. Further, it explores how international organizations have promoted a rights-based understanding of disability in international law, and to what extent this understanding has gained acceptance in humanitarian policy and practice. Theoretically, Funke and Dijkzeul explore the robustness of the disability inclusion norm cluster during processes of institutionalization, translation, and implementation. The book examines these processes from a multi-level perspective, which involves a variety of actors beyond states, including organizations of persons with disabilities. Situating their analysis within the literature on humanitarian action and development, the authors argue for an increased focus on processes "below" the international level in international relations and international law scholarship to better understand disability inclusion.