Jeremy N. Smith. (2015). Epic Measures: One Doctor. Seven Billion Patients. HarperCollins.

Jeremy N. Smith. 2015. Epic Measures: One Doctor. Seven Billion Patients. HarperCollins.

Jeremy N. Smith, Epic Measures: One Doctor. Seven Billion Patients. HarperCollins, 2015.

Jeremy N. Smith. Epic Measures: One Doctor. Seven Billion Patients. HarperCollins, 2015.

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     Jeremy N. Smith has written for the Atlantic, Discover, and the New York Times, among many other publications, and has been featured by CNN, NPR, and Wired. His first book, Growing a Garden City, was one of Booklist's top ten books on the environment for 2011. Born and raised in Evanston, Illinois, he is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Montana. He lives in Missoula, Montana, with his wife and daughter.

   • name: Jeremy N. Smith

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Epic Measures

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Moneyball meets medicine in this remarkable chronicle of one of the greatest scientific quests of our time and the visionary mastermind behind it.

Medical doctor and economist Christopher Murray began the Global Burden of Disease study to gain a truer understanding of how we live and how we die. While it is one of the largest scientific projects ever attempted—as breathtaking as the first moon landing or the Human Genome Project—the questions it answers are meaningful for every one of us: What are the world's health problems? Who do they hurt? How much? Where? Why?

Murray argues that the ideal existence isn't simply the longest, but the one lived well and with the least illness. Until we can accurately measure global health issues, we cannot understand what makes us sick or do much to improve it. Challenging the accepted wisdom of the WHO and the UN, the charismatic and controversial health maverick has made enemies—as well as some influential friends, including Bill Gates who gave Murray a $100 million grant.

Told with novelistic verve by acclaimed journalist Jeremy N. Smith, the story of Murray's lifelong determination to understand how we live and die encompasses wars and famines, presidents and activists, billionaires and billions of people worldwide living in poverty. It shows the human side of scientific revolutions and of revolutionary scientists—their breakthroughs and setbacks, their genius and their flaws, their champions and their critics—as they strive to bring the news of their findings to the world. This transformational effort is far from over, but the story of its genesis and impact is already an epic tale.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source: Paul Farmer, Co-Founder of Partners In Health and Co-Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School
   • content: "Jeremy Smith's engaging story of a man obsessed with the numbers, and the mortal dramas they tell, reads like a novel and is better than any textbook or survey of this planet's health."
2. • premium: False
   • source: Hank Green, co-creator and co-host of Crash Course and SciShow
   • content: "Epic Measures is a story of people who believed...that what needed to be done could be done. It's exciting, well-crafted, and inspirational. Like The Social Network but actually important. Saving a million lives isn't cool. Y'know what's cool? Saving a billion lives."
3. • premium: False
   • source: Edward O. Wilson, University Professor Emeritus, Harvard University
   • content: "Jeremy Smith tells an inspiring story of how a simple idea, conceived logically and pursued with grit, can greatly improve the human condition."
4. • premium: False
   • source: A. J. Jacobs, author of Drop Dead Healthy and The Year of Living Biblically
   • content: "This book is a crash course in global health mixed with a thriller and a biography. And my goodness, what a made-for-Hollywood character at its core—a brilliant but bristly scientist out to revolutionize the way we conceive healthcare."
5. • premium: False
   • source: Gary King, Director of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University
   • content: "Reading Epic Measures is like spending time with Chris Murray—an intense intellectual treat, the sense of participating in something important, and the thrill of a riveting adventure. For more realism, I recommend reading this book while biking up or skiing down a terrifyingly steep mountain slope."
6. • premium: False
   • source: Harvey V. Fineberg, President, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
   • content: "Bold, brash, and brilliant.... In Epic Measures, Jeremy Smith tells a compelling story of the man who led a group of like-minded collaborators, inspired a legion of followers, irritated the establishment, and changed the way the world thinks about health and disease."
7. • premium: False
   • source: Michelle Nijhuis, co-editor of The Science Writers' Handbook
   • content: "The Global Burden of Disease Study is not only an epic dataset, but also an epic human story.... Through fine reporting and graceful writing, Jeremy Smith reveals the high-stakes story behind the numbers that are transforming global health.
8. • premium: False
   • source: Tina Rosenberg, The New York Times Opinionator
   • content: "Remarkably entertaining... A giant compilation of 'who knew?'"
9. • premium: False
   • source: Richard E. Besser, M.D., Chief Health and Medical Editor, ABC News
   • content: "In public health it is said that what is measured gets done. But what if the measurements were all wrong? This book should be mandatory reading. While others on the beach may have been reading mysteries, I was turning the pages of a true thriller."
10. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      February 16, 2015
      Science writer Smith (Growing a Garden City) deftly blends the biography of remarkable doctor and economist Christopher Murray with a history of his greatest public health project: the Global Burden of Disease studies that chart “the entire burden of disease for every place and every person on Earth.” Smith notes the life events that put Murray on the path to his groundbreaking study: a childhood fascination with maps; family travels to Africa, where his parents ran a small hospital; a stellar academic career at Harvard; a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford; a bitter experience at the World Health Organization; and a lifelong collaboration with health statistician Alan Lopez on creating the Global Burden formula and conducting fascinating studies. Funding from billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates helped launch the Global Burden project, and in 2012, a successful “prepublication presentation” was made in Seattle. Smith’s thoughtful, data-dense material is ideal for students of public health policy, who will appreciate why one public health specialist called Murray and Lopez’s work “epic squared,” but he also makes Murray’s relentless search for a way to understand the human health condition into an inspirational tale for everyone. Agent: Michelle Tessler, Tessler Literary Agency.

11. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      January 15, 2015
      Smith (Growing a Garden City, 2010) a freelance journalist who covers health and environmental issues for Discover, the Chicago Tribune and other leading publications, chronicles an ambitious project to collect comparative data on global health issues.In 2013, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation-sponsored and funded by the Gates Foundation-issued its groundbreaking report on world health, The Global Burden of Disease, a "meticulous decades-long creation...measuring the impact of 235 causes of death, 289 diseases and injuries, and 67 risk factors for men and women in 20 age groups." The author compares the study to the Human Genome Project in its scope and potential benefits, and he identifies the impacts of health issues and available treatments on the duration and quality of life. Smith profiles the vision of director Christopher Murray, a man with a powerful desire to revolutionize the treatment of health on a global scale. Murray's passion began with summers spent assisting his parents in the operation of a mobile hospital in the African desert. Smith's formal education in health issues began in the 1980s, when he studied biology at Harvard and earned a medical degree. He also received a doctorate in international health economics from Oxford. In 1998, he became the director of a short-lived World Health Organization project to issue an independent, evidence-based report on world health, a report that was a predecessor of the 2013 study. Murray was struck by the conflicting data from international health agencies on global life expectancy, infant mortality, the incidence of chronic disease and more. The boy who had seen poverty firsthand in Africa became a man with a mission "to measure how we sicken and die in order to improve how we live." A fascinating account of a charismatic visionary who successfully battles the convoluted politics of international health bureaucracies.

      COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

12. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      March 15, 2015
      Imagine the challenge of tabulating almost everything wrong with everyone everywhere. In 147 of 192 countries, dependable death certificates are nonexistent. So obtaining oodles of information about what makes people sick, what disables them, and what they die from is a Herculean task. The Global Burden of Disease project is a spectacular achievement that measures just how people worldwide sicken and die. That data offers valuable insights into how populations can live better and longer. As of 2010, the world's top causes of total years of healthy life lost (ischemic heart disease, lower-respiratory infections, stroke, diarrheal diseases, HIV/AIDS), greatest causes of healthy life lost to disability (low back pain, major depressive disorders, iron-deficiency anemia, neck pain, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), and highest risk factors for years of healthy life lost (high blood pressure, tobacco smoking, alcohol use, household air pollution, diet low in fruit) are now more accurately identified. Physician and economist Christopher Murray, founder of the Global Burden of Disease project, is profiled along with other contributors. An impressive account of medicine and statistics, epidemiology and global health.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

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Moneyball meets medicine in this remarkable chronicle of one of the greatest scientific quests of our time and the visionary mastermind behind it.

Medical doctor and economist Christopher Murray began the Global Burden of Disease study to gain a truer understanding of how we live and how we die. While it is one of the largest scientific projects ever attempted—as breathtaking as the first moon landing or the Human Genome Project—the questions it answers are meaningful for every one of us: What are the world's health problems? Who do they hurt? How much? Where? Why?

Murray argues that the ideal existence isn't simply the longest, but the one lived well and with the least illness. Until we can accurately measure global health issues, we cannot understand what makes us sick or do much to improve it. Challenging the accepted wisdom of the WHO and the UN, the charismatic and controversial health maverick has made enemies—as well as some...

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