Family both affects and is affected a person's health—through environment, socioeconomics, and psychology, among many other factors. Nearly 400 health experts, both academics and clinicians, provide brief articles on health in the context of the family in the Encyclopedia of Family Health. The primary audience for this reference is US health care providers, researchers, and educators; however, articles are written in plain, straightforward language accessible to students and the general public. Two doctoral-prepared nurses are the content editors of this 2-volume encyclopedia, and the editorial board is composed of 10 primarily US-based members from family medicine, nursing, child psychiatry, and social work. Article authors are mostly from the United States with about 15% from other countries. Author institutional affiliations are broadly based from the well-known Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Mayo Clinic, and the Institute for Patient- and Family-Centered Care, as well as a large number of researchers from universities and a few clinicians in private practice.
This encyclopedia gathers together valuable articles on the interrelatedness of family and health. One example is the article on bipolar disorders and the family, which points the reader toward “expressed emotion” literature as it relates to family members. While the physician recognizes mental illness as an illness, family members might attribute the patient's behavior to other factors. The patient's illness affects the family, but family attitudes can also affect the patient's health. This article raises the issue of interpersonal relations in the family of a patient with a bipolar disorder and suggests family-focused therapy as one intervention that has shown promise in combination with medications.
While the content is excellent, Sage has not lived up to its standards for design and editorial production. Organization and navigation of these two volumes leave a great deal to be desired. There is an alphabetical “List of Entries” at the front of each volume (each covering the entire set) and a “Reader's Guide” in the first volume only. The “List of Entries” is nothing more than an alphabetical list of article titles with no page numbers. Articles are located by searching for the first word of titles at the top of each page throughout the two volumes, so readers would have to think of the first word of a title to find that article. The “Reader's Guide” is a better finding aid in that articles are categorized into eleven topics, making it useful for locating related article titles, but this appears only in the first volume and has no page numbers either. An index at the back of the second volume has page numbers, but the index itself is not a comprehensive subject index. It still largely relies on the reader to think of the title word to find an article. For example, the index has no entry for “insurance,” but the book has an article titled, “Cost of Medical Care and Existing National, State, and Private Pay Avenues for Families.” There is an index entry for the article titled, “Communication in Families Related to Health and Illness,” but while family communication is a major aspect of the article on bipolar disorders, it is not referenced under “communication” in the index.
The “Reader's Guide” topics include at-risk conditions and at-risk situations (covering addiction, death from unnatural causes, elder abuse, incest, rape, suicide, war, etc.); education of health care providers; factors influencing family health (socioeconomic, cultural, and religious perspectives); discussions of families experiencing acute physical and mental illness, chronic physical and mental health conditions, and transitions (covering abortion, adoption, marriage, divorce, job loss, death, parenting, same-sex partner rights, etc.); family and the health care system (related to access to health care); family health assessment; family health perspectives (theory and research); family interventions (counseling and caregivers); and genetics and families. The encyclopedia, however, is organized by article titles, not by these topics.
The content editors offer suggestions for approaching the work by recommending reading three articles that place the family as the central, defining context of health. They then recommend reading the first article, “The Relationship of Family to Health: Historical Overview.” Entries then begin and are listed alphabetically by article title, with A–G contained in the first volume and H–Z in the second. Articles are brief, readable, and directly applicable. All articles list sources and provide suggestions for further reading. There is also an appendix of additional resources at the back of the second volume covering the entire work.
This work is unique in that it offers a family framework to diseases and conditions. It is not a disease-oriented source such as the Merck manuals or a consumer-health encyclopedia like the Cornell Illustrated Encyclopedia of Health or Family Health & Medical Guide from the American Academy of Family Physicians. Nor is it like the more extensive (and expensive) profession-specific works from Springer such as Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. This encyclopedia offers important psychosocial perspectives about health as it relates to the family unit and is intended to aid clinical practitioners.
Because of the strength of the content, the Encyclopedia of Family Health would be a useful addition to biomedical or hospital libraries or any library serving health care providers or students of medicine, nursing, or allied health professions. In the United States, health care frequently focuses on the individual in isolation. Doctors see patients in their offices and focus on the present disease or condition. This work considers patients in the broader context of their lives and seeks to assist physicians and others in assessment and treatment with a more holistic, interdisciplinary, and family-centered approach.