HPH NOW, March 4, 2005, Full-Color Book Vividly Shows Impact of War and Armed Conflict around World

Page by page, the new book Wounds of War shows in full color the faces of people around the world surviving in the midst of armed conflict. The ethnically diverse faces are young and old, male and female, soldier and civilian. Collectively, their images call attention to the changing nature of war, one in which conflicts, more often than not, occur within countries rather than between countries and in which civilians are increasingly deliberate targets rather than accidental victims. Women and children in particular have become the intentional targets of murder, rape, and kidnapping.

Wounds of War was written by HSPH graduate student Julie Lamb, alumna Marcy Levy, and HSPH Professor Michael Reich for the International Conference on Women Defending Peace, held in Geneva, Switzerland in November. The conference and the book were sponsored by the Suzanne Mubarak Women's International Peace Movement and the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs.

The book, available through Harvard University Press and also online at http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hcpds/booksonline.html, presents a collage of images, figures, and text based on the latest research findings. The text addresses major policy issues facing organizations involved in humanitarian assistance and highlights actions to address and resolve armed violence and conflict. The book focuses on the impacts of war on women and girls, and the potential for women as peacemakers.

The images, most of which were obtained through a London-based photo agency, avoid battle scenes. Instead, the photos address the more subtle aspects of conflict. Two girls in Uganda show their raw and bruised feet, which were torn up as the girls fled through the bush from a resistance army. A cellist in Bosnia and Herzegovina plays music by the graves of mortar attack victims. A thirteen-year-old girl in El Salvador brandishes a rifle as a member of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front. "We chose not to include very graphic images because we wanted to show photos that people could relate to," said Levy.

Added Lamb, "We hope to remind people that armed conflicts and wars have a way of seeping into peoplešs lives in ways that we don't always think about or that are portrayed in the media."

The book covers economies of war, small arms and light weapons, landmines, the environment, human trafficking, women in armed movements, child soldiers, violence against women and girls, missing persons, displaced populations, and peacekeeping. Also offered are 10 country profiles.

Other New Books:

Applied Longitudinal Analysis

By HMS Associate Professor of Medicine Garrett Fitzmaurice; HSPH Professor Nan Laird; and HSPH Dean for Academic Affairs James Ware
Wiley-Interscience

Longitudinal studies, employing repeated measurement of subjects over time, play a prominent role in the health and medical sciences as well as in pharmaceutical studies. An important strategy in modern clinical research, they provide valuable insights into both the development and persistence of disease, as well as into factors that can alter the course of disease development. The book features the following:

A focus on practical longitudinal analysis applications, utilizing a wide range of examples drawn from real-world studies
Coverage of methods of regression analysis for correlated data
Analyses utilizing the software SAS(r)
Multiple exercises and homework problems for review

A website at http://biosun1.harvard.edu/~fitzmaur/ala features 25 real data sets used throughout the text.

The impetus for the book arose from a graduate-level course on the topic at HSPH. "As course instructors, we were frustrated by the lack of a suitable textbook that adequately covered modern statistical methods for longitudinal analysis at a level accessible to a broad audience of researchers and graduate students in the health and medical sciences," explained Fitzmaurice. "We envision this book as a textbook for such a course and, subsequently, as a reference resource for researchers and graduate students."

Embodying Inequality: Epidemiologic Perspectives
Edited by HSPH Associate Professor Nancy Krieger
Baywood Publishing Company, Inc.

This volume, part of a series called Policy, Politics, Health, and Medicine, addresses the question of who and what drives current and changing patterns of social inequalities in health and draws on articles published in the International Journal of Health Services between 1990 and 2000.

Section I, Social Epidemiology: History, Hypotheses, Methods, and Measurement, focuses on theories and constructs useful for analyzing social inequalities in health related to class, race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and disability. Rather than construing these aspects of lived experiences of inequality as solely a matter of personal identities and behaviors, the contributors consider how the political and economic context in which people live enhances--or destroys their abilities to live healthy, dignified lives.

Section II, "Empirical Investigation: Social Epidemiology at Work," moves from concepts and critiques to critical applications, through analyses of what determines social inequalities in health. These determinants include economic and social deprivation; toxic substances and hazardous conditions; social trauma, including institutional and interpersonal discrimination and violence; targeted marketing of harmful commodities; and inadequate or degrading medical care.

Risk In Perspective: Insight and Humor in the Age of Risk Management
By HSPH Associate Professor Kimberly Thompson
AORM

Risk in Perspective is a collection of quotes and cartoons intended to prompt consumers to think about how they perceive risks in the world. Chapters are organized around themes of science and technology; mathematical models; variability; uncertainty; errors; choices and risk trade-offs; effectiveness, benefits, and costs; values and preferences; risks portrayed in the media; law and policy; U.S. health care; and risk in current times.