Overview

Unequal Health examines the reasons why stark differences in health and well-being persist, even as the health care industry and access to health care grow. The third edition of this powerful book retains the accessible style and focus on inequality from previous editions while featuring significant new material throughout. After an overview of key themes, the book introduces the concept of epidemiology—measuring the number of people who are sick or dying—and offers an overview of health trends over time. Author Grace Budrys distills the latest research to consider the relevance of sex, race, income, and education, and relative social status on health. The book discusses disease, habits that contribute to health, the relationship between health care and health status, genetics, socioeconomic inequality, health policy, and more. The third edition features a new chapter on diet, an increased discussion of substance abuse and the attention it receives based on who is engaging in this behavior, new material on income and education variables and inequality, a new discussion of the Affordable Care Act and its impact, and more.

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9781442248496

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Reviews

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

Author Information

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.

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