Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 214
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9⅜
978-1-4422-4849-6 • Hardback • January 2017 • $123.00 • (£95.00)
978-1-4422-4850-2 • Paperback • January 2017 • $48.00 • (£37.00)
978-1-4422-4851-9 • eBook • January 2017 • $45.50 • (£35.00)
Grace Budrys is professor emerita at DePaul University. She chaired the committee that created the Master of Public Health program and served as director for one year, directed the Public Services Master program, and was a professor in the Department of Sociology. Her books include Our Unsystematic Health Care System and How Nonprofits Work.
Chapter 1—Introduction
Chapter 2—Identifying Disease and Its Causes
Chapter 3—Causes of Death
Chapter 4—Age, Sex, and Race or Ethnicity
Chapter 5—External Causes of Death
Chapter 6—Healthy and Unhealthy Behaviors: Diet
Chapter 7—Healthy and Unhealthy Behaviors: Exercise, Smoking, and Substance Abuse
Chapter 8—Health Care
Chapter 9—Genes
Chapter 10—Stress
Chapter 11—Social Determinants of Health
Chapter 12—Social Inequality
Chapter 13—Unequal Health
Health shows us how people are affected by the lives they lead. Learning about it gives us a window into how people experience society and its injustices. Grace Budrys is a guide you can trust: she understands her subject, writes simply and clearly, and tells it like it is. As you read this book, you will find she becomes a friend as well as a teacher. This book is a gift to us all.
— Richard Wilkinson, University of Nottingham Medical School, co-founder of The Equality Trust
Numerous primate species are hierarchical, where it can be a profound, existential drag to be low-ranking. But nothing rivals the human invention of socioeconomic status and inequality when it comes to subordinating the have-nots. It has long been recognized that these consequences include poor health. In this excellent, accessible new edition of Unequal Health, Budrys reviews the pathways mediating the social determinants of health. This is an important book, made even more so, I suspect, by the current political climate.
— Robert Sapolsky, Stanford University
Carefully researched, beautifully written, and accessible to most readers, Unequal Health is an indispensable book for anyone concerned about growing health inequities. The third edition provides a welcome update. Budrys addresses timely issues, such as the Affordable Care Act and its impact, along with long-standing concerns related to the social distribution of health behaviors and health care access that shape social variation in health outcomes.
— Robyn Lewis Brown, University of Kentucky
Introduces the uninitiated to scientific terms, sources, and research related to health
Includes examples from the United States and globally
Makes sophisticated health research findings accessible
Examines the impact of class, race, and gender on health outcomes
Outlines evidence showing that health status is directly related to socioeconomic status, even beyond the impact of poverty
Challenges basic tenets of the belief that we could all improve our health if we simply changed our behavior
Addresses topics such as smoking, diet, exercise, genetic inheritance, substance abuse, stress, and more
New features
New discussion of the Affordable Care Act and its impact
Updated data and statistics throughout
Covers substance abuse in more depth, with particular attention paid to who is engaging in this behavior
Continues to examine the impact of class, race, and gender, while adding new material on income and education