Recommended Summer Reading from the Deans of Schools of Public Health
If you are looking for ways to relax this summer while still broadening your intellectual horizons, the Schools of Public Health are here to help. Deans from the ASPH-member schools have provided book recommendations to help fill the summer days with interesting and thought-provoking readings. A list of the deans’ recommendations is compiled below:
from the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health offers two recommendations:
"It Takes a Genome: How a Clash Between Our Genes and Modern Life is Making Us Sick" by Gregory C. Gibson; and
"The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution" by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending. Dean Chandler says both books "are nice complements to the age old ‘nurture versus nature’ theses."
"It Takes a Genome" is a public health oriented book that presents the hypothesis that the human genome is out of equilibrium with itself and the environment. The book explains the latest results emerging from the Human Genome Project, an international 13-year effort to complete the sequence of the 3 billion DNA subunits (bases) in the human genome. Now the project has expanded to explain the functions of all human genes, as well as the variation in them. The book examines those results in the context of modern
life.
Dean Chandler says that the "The 10,000 Year Explosion" is "an interesting take on ‘cultural and societal’ influences on human evolution even in the present time." The authors argue that human genetic evolution is ongoing and present evidence for genetic change in the past, especially since the invention of agriculture.
Dean Paul Cleary from the Yale School of Public Health recommends:
"Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World"
by Tracy Kidder. This Pulitzer-prize winning novel details the work of Dr. Farmer, founder of Partners in Health, and his efforts to establish a complex of public health facilities on the central plateau of Haiti, which lead to current initiatives on three continents. Dr. Farmer has pioneered novel, community-based treatment strategies for AIDS and tuberculosis (including multidrug-resistant tuberculosis). He and his colleagues have successfully challenged the policymakers and critics who claim that quality health care is impossible to deliver in resource-poor settings.
Dean Elizabeth Fontham from Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center School of Public Health recommends the following:
"Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap—and Others Don't"
by James Charles Collins
Based on a five-year research project, Good to Great examines 11 companies that made substantial improvements in performance over time and details the common traits that may challenge many of the conventional notions of corporate success. The book presents several strategies and ideas for good management.
"The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History"
by John M. Barry
This book details the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, one of the deadliest events in history, and focuses on what was occurring in the United States. The author places the pandemic against the background of American history and within the context of the history of medicine, and also posits how the government response to an epidemic is colored by the politics of the moment.
Dean Richard Kurz from the University of North Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health recommends:
"The Five Dysfunctions of a Team"
by Patrick Lencioni
This fictional tale deliver some hard truths about critical business procedures. The book's first part illustrates how teamwork can elude even the most dedicated individuals, and be restored by an insightful leader. A second part offers details on the "five dysfunctions" (absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results), along with a questionnaire for readers to use in evaluating their own teams and specifics to help them understand and overcome these common shortcomings.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health’s Dean Max Michael offers these three suggestions:
"The Age of the Unthinkable"
by Joshua Ramo
This book examines flaws in current thinking on subjects ranging from American political influence to the economy, and suggests a change in the physics of the way we, as a society, think. Dean Michael says the book is "an intriguing and unsettling work about the unpredictable complexity of so many of the issues facing institutions and organizations in the 21st century. I found the ideas very relevant to academic institutions in the rather challenging times."
"Revolutionary Road"
by Richard Yates
This novel, set in 1955, focuses on the hopes and aspirations of Frank and April Wheeler, Connecticut suburbanites who see themselves as very different from their neighbors in the Revolutionary Hill Estates. The couple has plans to break the suburban rut and find a greater life and experiences, but are faced with new realities and setbacks. The book explores how the couple’s frustrations and yearnings for something better represent the tattered remnants of the American Dream. Dean Michael says the book is "certainly as provocative as Updike."
"The Missing"
by Tim Gautreaux
This novel is set in the deep Louisiana South of the early 20th century, Dean Michael says, "gives you a glimpse of almost pre-industrial America and poverty." The book is the tale of a man who, after the murder of his parents and loss of his two year-old son to fever, undertakes a quest to find a missing girl.
Dean Barbara K. Rimer of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) Gillings School of Global Public Health suggests "The World is Fat" by Barry Popkin.
Dr. Popkin is the Carla Smith Chamblee Distinguished Professor of global nutrition; professor of nutrition; and director of the UNC Interdisciplinary Obesity Center at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. In his book, he argues that the fattening of the human race is not simply about the next cheeseburger; rather, it is a result of an unprecedented collision of human biology with trends in technology, globalization, government policy and the food industry that are changing how we eat and how we live.
Dean Steven Shortell of the University of California, Berkeley 
School of Public Health recommends:
"Powerful Times"
by Eamonn Kelly
Dean Shortell says that the book "provides valuable insights on seven ‘tensions' reshaping our lives in the 21st Century with implications for all sectors and societies."
"The Innovator's Prescription: A Disruptive Solution for Health Care" by Clayton Christensen
This book emphasizes the importance of innovation in various sectors of the economy and how the lessons learned can be applied to the health sector. Dean Shortell adds to "think of Public Health as the "ultimate disrupter" of health care delivery!"
ASPH would like to thank all the deans who submitted reading recommendations for this list. Further recommendations can be sent to submissions@asph.org and will be kept for future articles.
