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Loading... Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longerby Steven Johnson
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Great science writing about the main things that have doubled average human life expectancy in the last couple hundred years. I especially liked that he dug beneath the typical story about the discovery of penicillin for example. Yeah, the story of Alexander Fleming and his moldy Petri dish is gone over, but so many other people and institutions were involved. Really shows how progress in these matters is a group project, and different fields of science all contribute. no reviews | add a review
"As a species, humans have doubled their life expectancy in one hundred years. Medical breakthroughs, public health institutions, rising standards of living, and the other advances of modern life have given each person about 20,000 extra days on average. This book attempts to help the reader understand where that progress came from and what forces keep people alive longer. The author also considers how to avoid decreases in life expectancy as public health systems face unprecedented challenges, and what current technologies or interventions could reduce the impact of future crises. This work illuminates the power of common goals and public resources; the work of activists struggling for reform, and of scientists sharing their findings open-source-style; and of non-profit agencies spreading innovations around the world"-- No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)362.1Social sciences Social problems and services; associations Social problems of & services to groups of people People with physical illnessesLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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There are many important things to note:
- how culturally we celebrate wars so much more than health innovation which saves lives
- how we believe that private sector delivers results in health innovation when it is mostly been able to deliver distribution
- how health innovation is so much more complicated than the science alone because how it translates to policy makes all the difference
- how dogma even in the science community can make it hard to deliver health
Basically the vision of how science impacts health in the public is so different from what actually happened and how technology impacted life expectancy. Pretty much everyone should be aware of this history, particularly in a pandemic.
Good health needs passionate evidence based drivers, and a practical public policy translation… ( )