Developmental disabilities or neurodevelopmental disabilities (includes intellectual disability) are a diverse group of chronic disorders that begin at anytime during the development process (including conception, birth, and growth) up to 22 years of age and last throughout an individual's lifetime. Major disabilities include intellectual disabilities, learning disabilities, communication disorders, autism spectrum disorders, cerebral palsy, and neural tube defects. We provide an introduction and review epidemiology of major disabilities and have also gathered international research from...

Disability research is important for the individual and the family, but certainly also for the society that has to adapt and facilitate an easier life and better service for this segment of our populations. For example, research showed significant disparities in the prevalence of disability between urban and rural residents, which can guide society to provide better service. Epidemiology and survey research can be important tools for public health focus and intervention and guide policy makers to allocate budgets and service facilities and expertise. In this book, we have gathered research on...

Promoting healthy behaviours during adolescence, and taking steps to better protect young people from health risks are critical for the prevention of health problems in adulthood, and for countries' future health and ability to develop and thrive. This book deals with substance use and misuse, interpersonal violence, suicidal behaviour and unintentional injuries, behavioural risk factors of non-communicable diseases, under and over nutrition, child abuse and child labour, oral and hand hygiene in Asian and African countries. We hope this will be of interest to our readers.

The Corona hype, the Corona panic, has manifested the common cold as a brand new disease. What we present here is the psychosomatic hypothesis for COVID-19. We are living in a time of change. It is easy to assume that we live in a safe and stabile world, but the Corona COVID-19 pandemic has shown the whole world that this is not the case. Mighty forces changes our way of living, thinking and things changes fast. It is difficult to understand what is happening, for you need to be an expert in many different fields in order to really get it: medicine, economy and politics. You even need...

The "Global School-based Student Health Survey (GSHS)" is a World Health Organization and United States "Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)" collaborative effort in helping countries to assess various behavioural risk and protective factors in their communities, including mental health, suicidal behaviour, protective factors, substance use, violence and unintentional injury" among adolescents. In this book we used the most recent GSHS data (2016-2017) to describe a range of interpersonal and self-directed violence among adolescents in 15 countries: Liberia, Lebanon, Myanmar,...

Nigeria a a pluralistic society a is a sub-Saharan Africa country, home to about 200 million people from 371 cultural tribes. All tribes in Nigeria have their specific cultural beliefs and practices. As a matter of fact, many of these practices had been in existence for hundreds of years, even before British colonization (1800-1960). There exists a strong interrelationship between the society and health. Some practices in the society have negative health implications while some do not. Unfortunately, many of the traditional or cultural practices in the Nigerian society have more associated...

In this book we have brought together research from international clinicians, practitioners and researchers from various backgrounds and communities. Some of the papers were presented at the annual Stop Youth Suicide conference in Lexington, Kentucky in November 2019 and some at the Fifth International Conference on Child Health, Development and Welfare in Jerusalem, Israel during December 2019. The topics in this international potpourri of presentations are from a college experience program for people with intellectual disabilities in New York, migration from South Korea, which has emerged...

Wherever we live or whatever we do, disability will always be a part of us. With increasing age, we will all surely encounter disability. Disability can arise from age or outside forces, such as a traffic accident. It is estimated that more than a billion people, or about 15% of the world's population, live with some form of disability. Disability research is therefore important not only for the individual and the family, but also for the society to adapt and facilitate a better quality of life for this segment of the population. For example, research from the United States found significant...

Before neurons and their role in pain were understood, there have been many explanations to account for pain. Hippocrates (370-460 BCE) believed that it was due to an imbalance in vital fluids and in the 11th century Avicenna (980-1037) theorized that there were a number of feeling senses including touch, pain and titillation. Today we talk about four types of pain: 1) Nociceptive pain: Typically the result of tissue injury, 2) Inflammatory pain: An abnormal inflammation caused by an inappropriate response by the body's immune system, 3) Neuropathic pain: Pain caused by nerve irritation and...