(Cross-posted from
The Itinerant Librarian)
Robert L. Ludke and Phillip J. Obermiller, eds. with Foreword by Richard A. Couto,
Appalachia Health and Well-Being. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2012. ISBN: 978-0-8131-35861.
Genre: nonfiction, reference work
Subgenre: Appalachia, health, health care, academic essays anthology
Format: Hardcover
Source: Hutchins Library, Reference Collection
This note is a reference book review. We currently have this book in our collection at
Hutchins Library;
I saw it on our new reference books' shelf, and I decided to make this
note both to help me better know this resource and to see if it can be
helpful for our students here. In this note, I will mainly look at key
features of the book, how it is organized, and why it may be useful and
how. On a small side note, I will probably pull some notes or items from
this review to write a small quick review for our library's blog about
this book. What I am saying is this note is a bit different than my
usual booknotes.
In our library, we get a lot of
questions related to Appalachia and the region in general. Appalachia is
also a big part of the college's curriculum, especially in the required
reading second semester General Studies course, so we are always
looking for resources in this area. Health in the region is often a
popular topic in those classes, so this book seems relevant.
I
need to note it was published in 2012. For some of our classes that may
require sources within 5 years (for reasons I will not go into here),
this book may already be "too old." However, for classes looking at the
region more broadly and at overall conditions in the region, this book
can be useful.
The book is a collection of scholarly
signed essays on various health related topics in the region. The book
is organized as follows:
- List of illustrations
- Foreword
- Introduction
- Three major parts, each containing a series of essays. The book has a total of 16 essays. The major part topics are:
- Appalachian Health Determinants
- Appalachian Health Status
- Urban Appalachian Health
- Acknowledgements
- Selected bibliography
- List of contributors
- Index
In
his foreword to the book, Professor Couto tells us chapters in this
book "addressed all the factors that promote health and well-being,
including economic, political, psychological, environmental, and social
ones" (xi). Maybe "all" is a bit too ambitious, but a look at the book's
contents shows work "to put health and health care in a socioeconomic
and political context" (xi). For many classes here on campus, specially
in that General Studies curriculum I mentioned, this book can provide a
good start for student research assignments.
This book
is not just a collection of essays. The book's foreword and
introduction provide a good overview of the complex issues of the region
in terms of health and health care. The editor writes,
"This
volume takes a broad perspective by focusing on the health of all
Appalachians, both residents of Appalachia and those who have migrated
from the region" (1).
The introduction's
overview goes over various essential topics in a brief but clear manner
in order to provide background material. Some of these topics include:
- Medical services for rural areas
- Health innovations
- Definitions and concepts
What
the book does not cover and why. This is the kind of statement that
students and researchers need to pay attention to when considering a
source for a research task or assignment as it presents the limitations
of the work being considered:
"There
are important Appalachian subpopulations (e.g African Americans,
Hispanics, Eastern Band Cherokee) and health cohorts (e.g. those with
HIV/AIDS) that are not discussed in this volume. Although women's health
is reasonably well represented here, many other subgroups in Appalachia
are not. This is not an intentional omission; it is caused by an
unfortunate lack of reliable regional data on these populations" (16).
The
book's introduction includes a section on "organization of this book."
Good scholarly essay collections often include this kind of section.
Here the editors define how a book is organized and why they chose their
book's arrangement as well as briefly describes each essay in the book.
So for students, read the introduction, specially this part, to quickly
assess how well this book may suit your assignment or not. For many
topics on Appalachian health and health care, you may find this book is a
good source. At the end of the introduction you will find endnotes and
references used in the introduction, which can be useful for expanding
your research.
In the book, each scholarly essay has
its own list of references as well. Again, those references are a tool
to help students and researchers expand their research. We librarians
often call using references from a source "citation mining." Want to
learn more about this research technique? You can ask your local
friendly librarian.
Finally, the book has an index of
terms you can use to locate specific contents in the book. Book also
contains various tables, charts, and graphs.
I'd
say for some of our classes here, especially for some in the General
Studies curriculum as well as classes here and in other places in
Appalachian Studies, health, and wellness, this book can be a good
resource.
Note: no stars rating. This is a reference book. If you have questions about why I did not rate this book, see my book review statement.
