Interprofessional Perspectives for Community Practice: Promoting Health, Well-being and Quality of Life

Now more than ever health care professionals play an increased role in the promotion of health to populations. Unique and innovative, Interprofessional Perspectives for Community Practice: Promoting Health, Well-being and Quality of Life weaves everyday care into prevention, community, and population health, creating a new and more expansive vision of health for all without compromising traditional practices.

Authors and editors Drs. Pizzi and Amir discuss and illustrate a client-centered preventive and health, well-being and quality of life approach rooted in best practice principles from interprofessional literature and firsthand experience. The text illustrates how allied health professionals implement those principles in their everyday and traditional practices with an emphasis on exploring health and well-being issues. Interprofessional Perspectives for Community Practice provides detailed guidance in program development and implementation.

What’s included in Interprofessional Perspectives for Community:

• Clinical anecdotes on successful community practices
• A focus on primary and secondary prevention
• Assessments, interventions, and community practice examples
• Descriptions of community-based practice settings such as adult day care, independent living programs, hospice, and home health care
• Health and wellness across the lifespan
• Bonus chapters available online as PDFs for readers

The first text of its kind to weave interprofessionalism, community practice, and health, well-being, and quality of life, Interprofessional Perspectives for Community Practice: Promoting Health, Well-being and Quality of Life is for all health care workers and students who wish to transfer practice skills from the clinical setting to a population-based program development model.

Michael A. Pizzi, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, has been an occupational therapist since 1981. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles and 25 book chapters, and is co-editor of a health promotion and wellness textbook. His research has focused on hospice, HIV/AIDS, wellness, and childhood obesity, and he is the only occupational therapist to guest edit the American Journal of Occupational Therapy on three different topics (AIDS, wellness, and childhood obesity). In occupational therapy, he has created clinical pathways in all of these areas. Dr. Pizzi created the first health and wellness interprofessional conference in 1993 and since then has focused on health, well-being, and quality of life in community practice. Dr. Pizzi developed the frst valid and reliable wellness tool that could be used inter-professionally called the Pizzi Health and Wellness Assessment (PHWA), as well as a health and wellness model called the Environment–Health–Occupation–Well-Being (E-HOW) Model. He created Touching Humanity, a not-for-profit whose motto is "given opportunity, always able."

Mark Amir, PT, DPT, MPH, DipMDT, is currently the Director of Clinical Education at DUNY – DPT and Residency Director at JAG Physical Therapy. His passion is to help students integrate newly acquired didactic skills that match their innate strengths to their clinical setting, which can positively impact the lives of their clients, themselves, and their community. Matching clinical experiences with a student-centered focus allows graduates and experienced clinicians to thrive in their chosen physical therapy career. Dr. Amir was a private practice, multi-state outpatient physical therapy owner for over 20 years.