Overview

Christie Kiefer vividly brings home the meaning of poverty in peoples’ lives as he examines both their access to-and their lack of-health care.             Aimed at both students and professionals in the field, this book argues that individuals serving the poor have the means and obligation to address the root causes of ill health of the poor, not just the symptoms. These causes, Kiefer argues, are overwhelmingly social and political. In a ringing indictment of the factors that perpetuate poverty, he declares that the work of healing at its best must include advocacy.             Health Work with the Poor offers to both health workers and activists a wealth of practical information. Kiefer’s trenchant analysis of the factors that help cause and perpetuate poverty offers students the needed intellectual framework not only to accomplish short-term change but also to strive toward long-term social advocacy. Each chapter ends with a set of discussion questions-a real boon for instructors. Appendices on Internet resources for the study of poverty and on a proposed program detailing how to teach health workers in a way that promotes social awareness make this book a valuable resource for courses on poverty and health. It will also be an indispensable manual for all those who work with the poor.

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9780813527772

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Reviews

"A beautifully and humanely rendered æmust read' for anyone who cares about health care for the poor. Christie Kiefer shows us the people behind the poverty statistics and the intimate interdependence between poverty and health. He drives home the need for approaches that stress individual and community empowerment and reduce the powergap between health care æproviders' and æconsumers.' A truly exceptional book!--Meredith Minkler ""University of California, Berkeley"" A cogent analysis of poverty in the United States. . . . An essential, highly readable resource for both students and health workers.--Ruth Sidel ""author of Keeping Women and Children Last: America's War on the Poor"" Rooted in an anthropological approach and based on the premise that community empowerment is required to span the power divide between providers and poor patients, the volume both explores familiar terrain, and provides fresh insights and directions for resolving issues surrounding health, healthcare, and poverty. . . A useful addition to the literature on this subject, and one that is suitable for use in courses for medical, nursing, and allied health students.-- ""Journal of Community Health"" This book provides a survey of issues related to working with the poor, which may be of particular value to faculty teaching a course in which economics and policies are given attention. . . . The style is easily understandable by undergraduate and graduate student alike. Useful appendixes are provided on Internet resources for the study of poverty and thoughts on teaching about the title subject. . . . Practical and readable.-- ""Journal of the American Medical Association"" This remarkable book . . . includes a historical account of attitudes toward the poor. . . . Kiefer gives many examples drawn from his own experience and those of health workers and poor patients which show how poverty denies access to timely and appropriate health care and how being poor tends to distort relationships with health care providers. . . . An unexpectedly rich dividend for the reader is a lengthy appendix for health care workers and applied social scientists who teach courses on poverty and health care. . . . Exceptionally well written and well documented, this book examines critical social issues with a full recognition of their complexity. The author contributes significantly to our understanding and knowledge about the complicated relationship between poverty and health. With admirable clarity, Kiefer identifies the stakes and the stakeholders and urges health care providers to develop a greater awareness of the social causes of illness and to intervene by changing the social, political, and economic conditions of the poor. The book will help to bring about just such an awareness and much needed social action.-- ""Science Books & Film"""

Author Information

Christie W. Kiefer is a professor of anthropology at the University of California-San Francisco, where he was taught in the School of Medicine for thirty years. He is the author of The Mantle of Maturity: A History of Ideas About Character Development and Refuge of the Honored: Social Organization in a Japanese Retirement Community.  

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