Gullotta and Bloom’s ambitious updated second edition of the Encyclopedia of Primary Prevention and Health Promotion doubles the coverage of the first edition to 190 entries organized into four volumes (not available separately). In addition to updating and expanding entries from the original 2003 edition, as demonstrated by current citations in the entries’ References sections, this new edition includes discussion of diverse populations and emergent approaches to preventive care, such as social support and social and emotional learning. This reference examines illness prevention and health promotion across the lifespan and is fundamentally underpinned by positive psychology.
The four volumes – Foundation Topics in Primary Prevention and Health Promotion, Early Childhood and Childhood, Adolescence, and Adulthood and Older Adulthood – contain chapter-length entries which generally adhere to a structured format, including an introduction, definitions, scope, theories, current research, strategies (evidence-based What Works best practices, promising new approaches and disproven interventions), a synthesis or summary and references and recommendations for further reading. Each entry lists the contributing authors with their credentials, affiliations and contact information. Strategies documented in the What Works sections must meet a threshold of statistically significant effects as documented in three randomized controlled trials (or relevant equivalent studies), as indicated by statements to the effect of “no … programs meet the requirement of three successful randomized control trials”, and “a search of the literature did not uncover the standards of an intervention that met three successful trials” contained in some entries. Entries are thoroughly referenced with live links provided for many references.
Volume 1 (pp. 1-532), Foundation Topics in Primary Prevention and Health Promotion, is organized topically and includes general entries for definitions, history, theory, research models, consultation, pharmacology, evaluation, programming, health literacy, at-risk populations, diversity and sociocultural issues, community organizing and social justice issues, mental and behavioural health and resilience, public health, ecology and the environment, politics, ethics and human rights, technology and health insurance and financing.
Volumes 2-4 are organized by stages of human development with entries arranged alphabetically. Volume 2 (pp. 533-982), Early Childhood and Childhood, contains entries on abuse, aggressive behaviour and bullying, cancer, parenting and childcare, creativity and intellectual growth, dental health, depression, health and fitness, nutrition and obesity, a diverse range of family structures (examples include divorced parents, adoptive, nuclear, parents who are emotionally ill or alcohol/drug dependent), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), HIV/AIDS, homicide, injury prevention, mentoring, paediatric medicine, peer relationships, religion, resiliency, school absenteeism, sexuality, sibling relationships, social and emotional learning, substance misuse and violence.
Volume 3 (pp. 983-1582), Adolescence, contains unique entries on optimal identity, positive risk taking, mental health, eating disorders and schizophrenia, academic success, learning differences, school violence, school programming and dropping out, anger management, social competency, conduct disorder, gambling, juvenile delinquency, relationships and sexuality, homophobia and LGBT youth, sexual assault, safe sex and STDs, driving safety, sports injuries, youth with disabilities, health promotion among rural youth, youths in foster care, social networking and life skills and concepts of well-being. Additionally, this volume further develops topics from Volume 2 in the context of adolescence, such as creativity, mentoring, family diversity, family strengthening and parental divorce, ASD, aggressive behaviour prevention, depression, homicide, injury prevention, physical and sexual abuse, HIV/AIDS, substance misuse, nutrition and obesity prevention, peer relationships, religion and spirituality, resiliency and social and emotional learning.
Volume 4, Adulthood (pp. 1,583-1,862) and Older Adulthood (pp. 1,863-2,136), contains entries on automobile safety, anger management, cancer, chronic disease and disability, consumer fraud, creativity, criminal behaviour, end-of-life, death and suicide, deployment and reintegration of veterans, ethnic and racial differences in health and mental health, eating disorders, HIV/AIDS, gambling, housing options and homelessness, adult and maternal nutrition, parenting, occupational safety, injury prevention and fall prevention, physical fitness, psychological empowerment, religion and spirituality, mental health, depression, schizophrenia, physical, sexual, spousal abuse and neglect, sexual harassment, sexuality, resiliency and stress reduction, substance misuse, aging, health and fitness in older minority adults, wellness and quality-of-life issues for caregivers, isolation and loneliness and retirement satisfaction.
Editors Thomas Gullotta and Martin Bloom, who also collaborated on the first edition, bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the topics of primary prevention and well-being. Gullotta is the CEO of Child and Family Agency, a member of the psychology and education faculty at Eastern Connecticut State University, a founding editor of the Journal of Primary Prevention and served as editor for the Prevention in Practice Library (1996-2001). He has written extensively on topics of health and wellness across the lifespan. Bloom is a professor emeritus of the University of Connecticut School of Social Work and has written throughout his career about lifespan development.
Gullotta and Bloom are supported by a diverse and international Advisory Board and more than 500 contributing authors, including practitioners and scholars in the public and private sectors, as well as in academia. Many contributing authors have terminal degrees in their fields, including MD-PhDs, PhD-MPHs and MSWs, and are experts in such diverse fields as clinical and social psychology and psychiatry, sociology and social work, mental health, behavioural science, counselling, substance abuse and treatment, nursing, internal and preventive medicine, nutrition, kinesiology, pain management and injury prevention, public and environmental health, forensics, epidemiology and bioinformatics, obstetrics and gynecology, human development, sex and gender, family studies, parenting and parent-child relationships, gerontology, philosophy and theology, law and criminal justice, economics and poverty policy, transportation safety, youth development, education and special education, bullying and aggression, communication studies, suicide and euthanasia, creativity, culturally responsive and family-based intervention, evidence-based practice and social science research methods.
While the Encyclopedia of Primary Prevention and Health Promotion covers a broad range of relevant topics, the inclusion criteria for entries is unclear and at times inconsistent across volumes. The Preface suggests that there was an open call for submissions, and the editors acknowledge that the encyclopedia is not comprehensive. In addition to questions of scope, there are questions of specificity; some entries are very general (e.g. Well-Being: Promoting Well-Being in Adolescents) while others are very specific (e.g. Sexually Transmitted Infections among Latino/Latina Adolescents). While the concept of trauma receives some treatment in entries on other topics, there are no standalone entries on trauma or post-traumatic stress – a glaring omission in such a work. The encyclopedia also has limited information for international audiences.
Available on the Springer Link platform as here reviewed, the eReference edition of Encyclopedia of Primary Prevention and Health Promotion is formatted both for printer-friendly online viewing and also as PDF downloads. The 35 figures and 65 tables cited on the title page are formatted usefully for digital readers. A suggestion for improvement is to make individual entries available as PDF files. Currently, PDF files are for the entire volume containing an entry of interest and, at 500+ pages, can pose access problems for users with low bandwidth Internet connections (not to mention the annoyance of navigating a 500-page PDF in search of a 10-page entry). Also, some terms within the encyclopedia are hyperlinked to be searched as keywords within the Springer Link platform; readers should be aware that they do not necessarily have full-text access to content discovered with this feature. While the online platform enables readers to “search within this reference work”, the encyclopedia would be enhanced by a keyword index and internal, see also cross-references to related entries within the work. MARC catalogue records are available for free directly from Springer (in both MARC21 and MARCXML formats under the Creative Commons 0 “No Rights Reserved” license) and from Online Computer Library Center.
Encyclopedia of Primary Prevention and Health Promotion is recommended for academic and special libraries serving practitioners, students, researchers or policymakers in the fields of mental health, public health, preventive medicine, social work or related disciplines in the USA or demographically similar countries.
