Health Protection: Principles and practice

Health Protection: Principles and practice is a practical guide for practitioners working at all levels in public health and health protection, including those with a non-specialist background. It is the first textbook in health protection to address all three domains within the field (communicable disease control; emergency preparedness, resilience and response (EPRR); and environmental public health) in a comprehensive and integrated manner. Written by leading practitioners in the field, the book is rooted in a practice-led, all-hazards approach, which allows for easy real-world application of the topics discussed.

The chapters are arranged in six sections, which begin with an in-depth introduction to the principles of health protection and go on to illuminate the three key elements of the field by providing: case studies and scenarios to describe common and important issues in the practice of health protection; health protection tools, which span epidemiology and statistics, infection control, immunisation, disease surveillance, and audit and service improvement; and evidence about new and emerging health protection issues.

It includes more than 100 health protection checklists (SIMCARDs), covering infections from anthrax to yellow fever, non-infectious diseases emergencies and environmental hazards. Written from first-hand experience of managing communicable diseases these provide practical, stand-alone quick reference guides for in-practice use.

Both the topical content of Health Protection: Principles and practice, and the clearly described health protection principles the book provides, makes it a highly relevant resource for wider public health and health protection professionals in this continually evolving field.

Dr Ghebrehewet is Director of Health Protection in Cheshire and Merseyside, UK. He graduated from medical school in Ethiopia, where he worked as a GP and Regional Director of Public Health Programmes. Dr Ghebrehewet has extensive experience in communicable disease control and health protection, with specialist interests in immunisation, Emergency Preparedness Resilience and Response (EPRR) and environmental public health practice. He has published widely, presented at regional, national and international conferences and is the lead for Health Protection in the Masters of Public Health at the University of Liverpool and lead public health trainer in Cheshire & Merseyside.


Dr Stewart is a Glaswegian born, bred and educated. Following a successful career of around 20 years in the northern mountains of Pakistan as a rural GP, Alex returned to the UK where he trained in Public Health in Cheshire and Merseyside. He was a Consultant in Health Protection for eleven years, with special interest in the acute and long-term effects of the environment on health. He has investigated and responded to many complex public health issues, and has developed an understanding of how to support local and national agencies and the public in the face of limited information, incomplete understanding and often great uncertainty.

Dr Baxter has been a Consultant in Communicable Disease Control for 20 years, working in the Stockport and Greater Manchester area. Over the last 25 years he has run successfully the UK National Immunisation Conference for Health Care Workers; provided a specialist immunisation clinics at the District General Hospital seeing around 15,000 patients; and led childhood and adult immunisation programmes and training in Stockport. During this time, Dr Baxter contributed to the delivery of a consistently high childhood immunisation uptake rates, and Stockport achieved highest influenza vaccination uptake in pregnant women in the country over the last four years. Dr Baxter has published widely and supervised several PhD theses.


Dr Shears is former consultant microbiologist and Director of Infection Control Arrowe Park Wirral University Hospital, with a special interest in the epidemiology and control of health care associated infections. Dr Shears was previously senior lecturer in medical microbiology at Liverpool University/Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, with postgraduate teaching responsibilities and public health microbiology projects in Sudan and Bangladesh. He was a member of WHO working groups on antimicrobial resistance, and public health laboratory development. He is the author of over 60 peer reviewed publications, has contributed chapters in several books, and is an Assistant Editor of the Journal of Hospital Infection. In the 1980's he was a medical officer in refugee programmes in Somalia, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Lebanon.


David Conrad is a Consultant in Public Health at Hertfordshire County Council. He holds an honorary research post at the University of Liverpool and has published papers in several peer reviewed journals. In collaboration with colleagues from the Centre for Men's Health at Leeds Metropolitan University, he has edited three books: Men's Health: How To Do It (Radcliffe), Promoting Men's Mental Health (Radcliffe) and Sports-Based Health Interventions: Case Studies from Around the World (Springer).


Dr Kliner was born and educated in Glasgow, Scotland. She graduated from University of Leeds with a degree in Medicine, and a BA in Healthcare Ethics. She has an interested in infectious diseases, and in particular TB and HIV, which developed during clinical training, guideline development work with WHO, and academic work within Good Shepherd Hospital in Swaziland, with the University of Leeds. She currently works as a Consultant in Communicable Disease Control in Greater Manchester.