Addictions: Tobacco
Mansoo Yu and Rachel Fischer
Tobacco use is a major public-health concern in the United States. Intervention and prevention strategies for tobacco use are an urgent public-health priority because tobacco use is the ...
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Adolescent Brain Development
Jessica M. Black
Although it was once widely held that development through toddlerhood was the only significant time of tremendous brain growth, findings from neuroscience have identified adolescence as a ...
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Adolescents: Pregnancy
Kathleen A. Rounds and Traci L. Wike
Although rates of adolescent pregnancy have exhibited a downward trend since 1991, the United States continues to have a significantly higher rate than other industrialized nations. ...
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Adult Day Care
Namkee G. Choi
Adult day care centers provide important health, social, and support services for functionally and cognitively impaired adults and their caregivers. The adult day care services are ...
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Advance Care Planning
Meredith Stensland, Sara Sanders, and Marla Berg-Weger
Advance care planning (ACP) is the process of determining and documenting desired wishes for the end of one’s life. Referred to by such terms as end-of-life planning, advance ...
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Affordable Care Act
Stephen H. Gorin, Julie S. Darnell, and Heidi L. Allen
This entry describes the development and key provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), which instituted a major overhaul of the U.S. health system, much of which ...
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Aging: Public Policy
Jeanette C. Takamura
Public policy advances in the field of aging in the United States have lagged compared to the growth of the older adult population. Policy adjustments have been driven by ideological ...
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Alcohol and Drug Problems: Practice Interventions
Maryann Amodeo and Luz Marilis López
This entry focuses on practice interventions for working with families and individuals including behavioral marital therapy, transitional family therapy, and the developmental model of ...
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Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias
Carole B. Cox
Dementia is not a disease, but a group of symptoms so severe that they inhibit normal functioning. Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of dementia in older persons impacting not ...
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