Second edition of the book series of the Forum for Public Health in South Eastern Europe (FPH-SEE)
Luka Kovačić1, Ulrich Laaser2, Genc Burazeri3, Lijana Zaletel Kragelj4
1 Andrija Stampar School of Public Health, Medical School, University of Zagreb, Croatia;
2 Section of International Public Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Bielefeld, Germany;
3 Faculty of Public Health, University of Medicine, Tirana, Albania;
4 Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Corresponding author: Prof. Luka Kovačić, MD, PhD;
Address: Andrija Stampar School of Public Health, Medical School, University of Zagreb, Rockefellerova 4, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia;
Telephone: +38514590100; E-mail: lkovacev@snz.hr
In order to develop the training and research capabilities for public health in South Eastern Europe a project funded by the German Stability Pact started in 2000. It was meant to support the reconstruction of postgraduate public health training programs through different activities, including the development of teaching modules. Originally planned to be on an Internet platform only, the Forum for Public Health in South Eastern Europe (FPH-SEE) (1) and the MetaNET project together with Hans Jacobs Publishing Company decided to publish this training material also as hard copy volumes. The first book was published in 2004 and the sixth one in 2010, together comprising around 3500 pages. After successful and widespread use of the teaching modules of all six books between 2004 and 2011 (2), the project coordinators decided – again together with Hans Jacobs Publishing Company – to publish a 2nd fully revised edition of selected modules as e-book.
The 2nd edition has been prepared for publication in two volumes under the titles Health: systems – lifestyles – policies (Volume 1) and Health Investigation: analysis – planning – evaluation (Volume 2). Volume 1 comprises the collection of 44 teaching modules, written by 56 authors from 10 countries. The teaching modules in this book cover the health care system, public health, lifestyles and health, environmental health, health promotion, health policy, and global health. The authors had full autonomy in the preparation of their teaching modules. They were asked to present their own teaching/training materials with the idea to be as practical and lively as possible. Having that in mind, the reader and the user of the modules of this book may sometimes find, that some areas of population health as well as of the management and organization of health services are not covered, some are just tackled and some are more deeply elaborated. The role of the editors was more to stimulate the authors to write and to revise modules, than to amend or edit their content.
The project coordinators and the editors of the 2nd edition are very grateful for the continuing interest of the authors to publish their materials and share their experience. We look back to more than a decade of cooperation and networking and are happy to see the fruits of this work grow ripe. We are confident that the selected 2nd edition will stabilize this success and contribute to lead South Eastern European Public Health into a future of excellence and stability.
Zagreb, 25 September, 2013
The coordinators: Professors Luka Kovačić (Croatia) and Ulrich Laaser (Germany)
The editors: Professors Genc Burazeri (Albania) and Lijana Zaletel Kragelj (Slovenia)
References
1. http://www.snz.unizg.hr/ph-see/index.htm.
2. Zaletel-Kragelj L, Kovacic L, Bjegovic V, Bozikov J, Burazeri G, Donev D, Galan A, Georgieva L, Pavlekovic G, Scintee SG, Bardehle D, Laaser U. Utilization of teaching modules published in a series of handbooks for teachers, researchers and health professionals in the frame of “Forum for Public Health in South Eastern Europe – Programmes for training and research in public health” network. Slovenian Journal of Public Health 2012;51(4):237-250.