Consumer Health 2004: Dr. Everyman

Health publishers agree that an increasingly unsatisfactory medical system has left many Americans eager to take control of their own healthcare, and they are in dire need of the information to do so. Consumers, says Atria Books vice president and executive editorial director Tracy Behar, are grappling "with the complexities of health insurance, the costs of getting the right treatment, the fact that [they] can't necessarily trust [their] doctors, and that [they] need to be [their] own best healthcare advocate." Doctors and nurses are so pressured to move quickly on to the next patient, notes Judith McCarthy, executive editor at McGraw-Hill Trade, that people are on their own for the day-to-day management of their illness.

As manager of collection development at Baker & Taylor (B&T), Christopher Platt specializes in helping new libraries build opening-day collections. He sees librarians showing an increased interest in books that explain how consumers can navigate the medical system to obtain needed services.

Such titles are necessary, comments Silver Lake Publishing publicity manager Daniela Cendron, because of the complexity of the system's rules and regulations, which is made more difficult when children are involved. To help parents wend their way through the tricky maze of the private and government health insurance programs now available, the Los Angeles–based publisher of small business, insurance, healthcare, and personal finance titles plans this September to release Kids and Health Care: Using Insurance, Cash and Government Programs To Make Sure Your Children Get the Best Doctors, Hospitals and Treatment. Written by Silver Lake editors, the guide will identify and compare these programs and explain how families can access them.

August marks the launch of Guilford Press's new series "Making the System Work for Your Child," which publicist Arthur Fournier describes as "guerrilla guides to 'getting it done' yourself when no one else can or will." The series editor is highly respected child psychiatrist Peter S. Jensen, M.D., whose Making the System Work for Your Child with ADHD will be the initial title.

"Parents have found the healthcare system so badly broken, especially with regard to mental health issues like ADHD and autism, that they must learn to be effective advocates to get adequate care for their children," explains Jensen. He points out that the forthcoming series will be designed to give parents expert advice and war stories from those families who have fought the healthcare system and won.

Adult consumers can also expect to get the inside scoop from medical professionals on how to work the system to their benefit. In 10 Things To Know Before You See the Doctor: A Physician's Advice from More than 40 Years of Practicing Medicine (Silver Lake Pub., Jun.), Sheldon Lipshutz, M.D., offers a behind-the-scenes look at how doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare providers operate and gives tips to help readers become smart and assertive consumers. In September, Berkley Publishing is releasing the paperback edition of Today show medical correspondents Kevin Soden, M.D., and Christine Dumas's Special Treatment (2003), which the publisher describes as a "guide to all the things doctors know about getting top-notch care—but don't always tell you."

Another way of managing the healthcare system is to avoid it altogether by remaining healthy. Tracy Bernstein, executive editor for New American Library (NAL), believes that baby boomers, "the first generation to really expect enjoyment out of life," have decided that "not getting sick in the first place" may be their best strategy for dealing with a consumer-unfriendly healthcare system.

Hence, publishers are trying to meet an increased demand for books on preventative medicine and self-care with forthcoming paperback reprints of favorites—Ultraprevention (Atria: S. & S., Jan. 2005), by Mark Hyman, M.D., and Mark Liponis, M.D.; Gary Null's Power Aging, by the alternative health guru (NAL, Dec.)—and new original titles—Live Longer, Live Better: Taking Care of Your Health After 50 (Quill Driver Bks., Sept.), by Peter H. Gott, M.D., "America's Most Popular Medical Columnist."

"We find people have the strongest interest in the broadest problems in health-nutrition and self-care," says Bull Publishing's marketing director George Young. True, the general public still has an insatiable hunger for trendy low-carb, low-calorie weight-loss programs, acknowledged this fall with such titles as The New Glucose Revolution Smart Carb Diet (Marlow, Sept.), by Jennie Brand-Miller and others; The Low-Carb Baking and Dessert Cookbook (Wiley, Oct.), by Linda Solom; and Satisfy Your-Cravings Low-Carb Cookbook, by Rachel and Richard Heller (Dutton, Jan. 2005). However, the medical community, health publishers like Bull Publishing, and savvy consumers increasingly recognize that permanent weight loss and good nutrition play an important role in preventing disease and promoting wellness.

"Dieters have realized that fad diets lead to their regaining weight if they don't stay on an established track and that emotional health matters just as much in weight management," comments Young. In August, Bull Publishing will release Josephina Connelly Schoonen's Lose Weight for Good with the Bull's Eye Food Guide: Your Best Mix of Carbs, Proteins, and Fat. The author, a clinical assistant professor of family medicine at SUNY–Stony Brook and a former spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association, discusses how the dietary mix of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats works differently for each individual and explains how the mix can be adjusted over time based on a strategy of long-term weight loss.

Because better nutrition can alleviate symptoms of a number of chronic conditions, doctors now advise patients to make dietary changes. Picking up on this trend, Ten Speed Press's Celestial Arts imprint this fall will publish Rebecca Katz's One Bite at a Time: Nourishing Recipes for People with Cancer, Survivors, and Their Caregivers, which combines recipes with nutritional information. "As the costs of healthcare and drugs increase, 'nutrition therapy' is beginning to look like a bargain," remarks Celestial Arts publisher JoAnn Deck.

Although prevention is "hot," there remains strong interest in specific diseases. B&T's Platt finds that librarians still want up-to-date information on diabetes, Alzheimer's, and cancer, a trend he attributes to the high incidence of those conditions.

But consumers now demand, as McGraw-Hill's McCarthy points out, advice on how to live well with these ailments. "In the Internet age, it's lifestyle-oriented information—how to eat, exercise, get the right emotional support—that people turn to books for," she explains. In November, McGraw-Hill will publish Coping with Chemotherapy and Radiation by Daniel Cukier, M.D., and Virginia McCullough, which covers the newest advancements in cancer treatments and how to deal with the possible side effects. From Bull Publishing comes Managing Kidney Disease: A Patient's Guide to Building a Better Life (Aug.) by Belding Scribner, M.D. The author, who died in late 2003, invented the life-saving kidney dialysis machine, and his accessible guide summarizes his 40 years of treating patients suffering renal failure.

Other forthcoming titles include The Atkins Diabetic Revolution (HarperCollins, Aug.), which features the late Robert Atkins's "approach to preventing, treating, and even reversing an American Epidemic"; and Diabesity: The Obesity-Diabetes Epidemic That Threatens America—and What We Must Do To Stop It (Bantam, Oct.), by Francine R. Kaufman, founder of several innovative programs for diabetic children. Given the growing concern about childhood obesity in this country, Da Capo senior director of publicity Lissa Warren has high hopes for her house's Raising Healthy Eaters (Dec.), by Henry Legere.

Increasingly, publishers are offering books that apply alternative therapies to specific medical conditions. In December, Taylor will publish Lisa Holtby's Healing Yoga for People Living with Cancer, and in November, Riverhead will issue How To Prevent and Treat Diabetes with Natural Medicine, by Michael Murray, an authority on natural medicine, and Michael Lyon, M.D., "one of the country's top experts in the treatment of diabetes." B&T's Platt believes that librarians are more inclined to buy such books because the science behind alternative medicine has gotten more authoritative over the past few years.

Despite all the talk about the Internet replacing books as the prime resource for consumer health information, signs of life for the print format remain. For instance, in 2005, McGraw-Hill will launch a new ten-book program on a variety of health and wellness topics as the exclusive publisher of Harvard Medical School health titles.

With regard to reference, Phyllis Karrh, the reference librarian at the Indianapolis–Marion County PL who selects health materials, believes that patrons continue to feel a comfort level with updated authoritative print standbys. Still, she believes the future holds a combination of physical book and digital version accessed through a library's web site.

Jessica Cole, the marketing manager at Marcel Dekker, reports that the trend for reference publishing is definitely online. "However, not every library is there yet, especially if they have to make the tough call of either buying print or online." She points out that Dekker's recently published Encyclopedia of Dietary Supplements "is both a print volume and an online database, with new and updated content added every quarter."

In the end, as more consumers take charge of their own health needs, publishers are seeing the fulfillment of their information demands as more than just a market opportunity; it's an obligation.