The Political and Social Contexts of Health

The Political and Social Contexts of Health
Author: Vicente Navarro
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2020-11-25
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1351862804

This analysis of the political and social forces that shape the well-being and quality of life of populations in developed capitalist countries is written by scholars based in several different countries. The book shows how the varying political traditions in the developed world - social democratic, Christian democratic, conservative, and liberal traditions - have affected populations' health and quality of life in the western democracies. The contributors also analyze the public and social policies derived from each of these political traditions that have affected levels of social inequality (through changes in the welfare states and labor markets) and on health and quality of life.

Public Health

Public Health
Author: Scriven, Angela
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2007-08-01
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0335221505

This important book makes a significant contribution to the emergent body of public health knowledge by examining debates around the social context of health, including key socio-economic, environmental and cultural factors

Communities in Action

Communities in Action
Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 583
Release: 2017-04-27
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309452961

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

U.S. Health in International Perspective

U.S. Health in International Perspective
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 421
Release: 2013-04-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0309264146

The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.

States of Disease

States of Disease
Author: Brian King
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2017-01-03
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 0520278216

"Human health is shaped by the interactions between social and ecological systems. States of Disease advances a social ecology of health framework to demonstrate how historical spatial formations contribute to contemporary vulnerabilities to disease and the possibilities for health justice. The book examines how managed HIV in South Africa is being transformed with expanded access to antiretroviral therapy, and how environmental health in northern Botswana is shifting due to global climate change and flooding variability. These cases demonstrate how the political environmental context shapes the ways in which health is embodied, experienced, and managed"--Provided by publisher.

The Social Context of Health and Health Work

The Social Context of Health and Health Work
Author: Linda J. Jones
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 618
Release: 1994-07-19
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1349234729

The Social Context of Health and Health Work breaks new ground by linking together sociology of health and social policy perspectives. Linda Jones argues that health and health work cannot be understood in isolation. Patterns of disease, illness, treatment and provision are crucially influenced by class, race, gender, age and disability. Conflicts over health policies reflect fundamental debates about the purpose of welfare. The writer draws on her specialist knowledge of developing and teaching nursing and health studies courses, and on her recent experience of writing distance learning materials, to create a book which encourages critical thinking and supports study.

EBOOK: The Social Context Of Health

EBOOK: The Social Context Of Health
Author: Michael Hardey
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
Total Pages: 188
Release: 1998-07-16
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0335231705

In what way is health related to our sense of self-identity? How do we make decisions about our health in an age of uncertainty? Which developments in medical knowledge and the delivery of care change our ideas about health? The central theme running through this book is the essentially 'social' nature of health. This embraces the way medical knowledge emerged out of a specific set of historical and intellectual circumstances, and the shaping of the health professions by the cultural and political milieu of the nineteenth century. Like non-expert knowledge, the development and application of expert knowledge in health is embedded in social processes. In this accessible text the complex relationships between inequality, race, gender and other social divisions are examined and related to changes in health care. Problems central to the delivery of health care are highlighted and linked to challenges to established health-care professions and systems. Michael Hardey shows the way in which health has become part of our identity, and relates this to the increasing range of health advice and the constant choices available in terms of our health and lifestyles.

The Political Self

The Political Self
Author: Roderick Tweedy
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2018-03-29
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0429921764

This book explores how our social and economic contexts profoundly affect our mental health and wellbeing, and how modern neuroscientific and psychodynamic research can both contribute to and enrich our understanding of these wider discussions. It therefore looks both inside and outside - indeed one of the main themes of The Political Self is that the conceptually discrete categories of 'inner' and 'outer' in reality constantly interact, shape, and inform each other. Severing these two worlds, it suggests, has led both to a devitalised and dissociated form of politics, and to a disengaged and disempowering form of therapy and analysis.

The Political Determinants of Health

The Political Determinants of Health
Author: Daniel E. Dawes
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2020-03-24
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1421437899

A thought-provoking and evocative account that considers both the policies we think of as "health policyand those that we don't, The Political Determinants of Health provides a novel, multidisciplinary framework for addressing the systemic barriers preventing the United States from becoming the healthiest nation in the world.

Health and the Good Society

Health and the Good Society
Author: Alan Cribb
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2005-10-13
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191529400

The goals of healthcare and health policy, and the health-related dilemmas facing policy makers, professionals, and citizens are extensively analysed and debated in a range of disciplines including public health, sociology, and applied philosophy. Health and the Good Society is the first full-length work that addresses these debates in a way that cuts across these disciplinary boundaries. Alan Cribb's core argument is that clinical ethics needs to be understood in the context of public health ethics. This entails healthcare ethics embracing 'the social dimension' of health in two overlapping senses: first, the various respects in which health experiences and outcomes are socially determined; and second, the ways in which health-related goods are better understood as social rather then purely individual goods. This broader approach to the Cthics of healthcare includes a concern with the social construction of both healthcare goods and the roles, ideals, and obligations of agents; that is to say it focuses upon the 'value field' of health-related action and not only upon the ethics of action within this value field. This groundbreaking book thus seeks to 'open up' the agenda of healthcare ethics both methodologically and substantively: it argues that population-oriented perspectives are central to all healthcare ethics, and that everybody has some share of responsibility for securing health-related goods including the good of greater health equality. One of its major conclusions is that the rather limited tradition of health education policy and practice needs a complete re-think.