With swashbuckling wit and fierce honesty, she dishes on herself and her colleagues as they try to prod reluctant governments to fund HIV prevention for the people who need it most—drug injectors, gay men, sex workers, and johns.Pisani chats with flamboyant Indonesian transsexuals about their boob jobs and watches Chinese streetwalkers turn away clients because their SUVs aren't nice enough. With verve and clarity, she shows the general reader how her profession really works; how easy it is to draw wrong conclusions from "objective" data; and, shockingly, how much money is spent so very badly. "Exhibit A": the 45 billion taxpayer dollars the Bush administration is committing to international AIDS programs.

    One of the most passionate and influential voices for global health equity and social justice, Farmer encourages young people to tackle the greatest challenges of our times. Engaging, often humorous, and always inspiring, these speeches bring to light the brilliance and force of Farmer’s vision in a single, accessible volume.A must-read for graduates, students, and everyone seeking to help bend the arc of history toward justice, To Repair the World:-Challenges readers to counter failures of imagination that keep billions of people without access to health care, safe drinking water, decent schools, and other basic human rights;-Champions the power of partnership against global poverty, climate change, and other pressing problems today;-Overturns common assumptions about health disparities around the globe by considering the large-scale social forces that determine who gets sick and who has access to health care;-Discusses how hope, solidarity, faith, and hardbitten analysis have animated Farmer’s service to the poor in Haiti, Peru, Rwanda, Russia, and elsewhere;-Leaves the reader with an uplifting vision: that with creativity, passion, teamwork, and determination, the next generations can make the world a safer and more humane place.

    However, in a country of more than 325 million people, addressing everyone's issues is challenging. How can we effect beneficial change for everyone so we all can thrive? What is the great equalizer?In this book, Daniel E. Dawes argues that political determinants of health create the social drivers--including poor environmental conditions, inadequate transportation, unsafe neighborhoods, and lack of healthy food options--that affect all other dynamics of health. By understanding these determinants, their origins, and their impact on the equitable distribution of opportunities and resources, we will be better equipped to develop and implement actionable solutions to close the health gap.Dawes draws on his firsthand experience helping to shape major federal policies, including the Affordable Care Act, to describe the history of efforts to address the political determinants that have resulted in health inequities. Taking us further upstream to the underlying source of the causes of inequities, Dawes examines the political decisions that lead to our social conditions, makes the social determinants of health more accessible, and provides a playbook for how we can address them effectively. A thought-provoking and evocative account that considers both the policies we think of as health policy and 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 care, patients and doctors are losing. Who Killed Health Care? shows how to win the war. One of the nation's most respected health care analysts, Regina Herzlinger exposes the motives and methods of those who have crippled America's health care system-figures in the insurance, hospital, employment, governmental, and academic sectors. She proves how our current system, which is organized around payers and providers rather than the needs of its users, is dangerously eroding patient welfare and is pushing costs out of the reach of millions.Who Killed Health Care? then outlines Herzlinger's bold new plan for a consumer-driven system that will deliver affordable, high-quality care to everyone. By putting insurance money in the hands of patients, removing the middleman in the doctor-patient relationship, and giving employers cost relief, consumers and physicians will be empowered to make the system work the way it should. Herzlinger describes in precise detail how her innovative program will provideSmaller, disease-focused medical facilities that provide complete care for patientsA national system of medical records that provides privacy with confidential access by approved practitionersMandatory performance evaluations of all hospitals and all other medical organizationsMandatory health insurance with subsidies for those who cannot afford itWho Killed Health Care? is a call to arms that must be answered; the welfare of every American hangs in the balance."A brilliant analysis... A must-read." - Bill George, Professor, Harvard Business School and Former CEO of Medtronic"As it becomes more and more obvious to everyone that our current health care system is unsustainable, this is the book that had to be written." - Daniel H. Johnson, Jr. MD, former president of the American Medical Association"Regina Herzlinger's ideas to tackle the crisis of the U.S. health care system are based on keen knowledge of the system's existing difficulties along with insights that introduce the reader to new streamlined choices that have the potential of getting both quantity and cost under control." - Joseph Kennedy, founder, chairman, and president, Citizens Energy Corporation, CEO, Citizens Health Care, former representative (D-Mass)"Regina Herzlinger... offers a vision of the way things can be, should be, and will be sooner or later. The only question is: how long do we have to wait?" - Greg Scandlen, founder, Consumers for Health Choices "Regi Herzlinger has brilliantly articulated a better way - embracing the principles of competition and innovation that cause every other sector of our economy to thrive. Discharging American health care from the ICU can only happen by putting individual Americans - not politicians and bureaucrats - back in charge of their health care decisioins." - U.S. Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla), M.D. "Following on the heels of her landmark Market-Driven Health Care, Herzlinger lays it on the line with her expose of what many who work in the health care industry have felt in their gut. Now it is articulated in an entertaining and must-read portrayal, with you and me as the only way out." - Dennis White, executive vice president for strategic development, National Business Coalition on Health "A wonderful Orwellian romp through issues which carry a deadly irony. The killers of health care are, of course, the third parties, each of which has an itchy palm and a commitment to profit or power which exceeds the commitment to service, with each engaging the others within a politically shaped box. Rarely has the case for the public been made with so much force, foresight, and wit, and a better way forward shown so clearly." - James F. Fries, MD, Professor of Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine "You can practically hear the war chants as Professor Herzlinger sets out her view of what's wrong with the health care system and how to fix it. You'd best read it so you can decide which side you will be on when the battle is joined." - Paul Levy, CEO, Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, MA "Regina Herzlinger, the nation's leading expert on consumer-driven health care, has given us a brilliant analysis of the flaws in our health care system and what it will take to get it back on track. Her latest book is a must-read." - Bill George, Professor of Management Practice, Harvard Business School, Former CEO, Medtronic, and author of Authentic Leadership "You don't have to agree with her diagnosis and prescription for the U.S. health care system, but you do have to read her book. Once again, Professor Herzlinger has put together a well researched, well written, and very provocative blueprint for the future of health care." Peter L. Slavin, MD, President, Massachusetts General Hospital

    Being Mortal by Atul Gawande - A 20-minute Summary Inside this Instaread Summary: • Overview of the entire book• Introduction to the important people in the book• Summary and analysis of all the chapters in the book• Key Takeaways of the book• A Reader's Perspective Preview of this summary: Chapter 1 Gawande grew up in Ohio. His parents were immigrants from India and both were doctors. His grandparents stayed in India, and there were few older people in his neighborhood, so he had little experience with aging or death until he met his wife’s grandmother, Alice Hobson. Hobson was seventy-seven and living on her own in Virginia. She was a spirited widow who fixed her own plumbing and volunteered with Meals On Wheels. However, Hobson was losing strength and height steadily each year as her arthritis worsened.Gawande’s father enthusiastically adopted the customs of his new country, but he could not understand the way in which seniors were treated in the US. In India, the elderly were treated with great respect and lived out their lives with family.In the United States, Sitaram Gawande, Gawande’s grandfather, likely would have been sent to a nursing home like most of the elderly who cannot handle the basics of daily living by themselves. However, in India, Sitaram Gawande was able to live in his own home and manage his own affairs, with family constantly around him. He died at the age of one hundred and ten when he fell off a bus during a business trip.Until recently, most elderly people stayed with their families. Even as the nuclear family unit became predominant, replacing the multi-generational family unit, people cared for their elderly relatives. Families were large and one child, usually a daughter, would not marry in order to take care of the parents.This has changed in much of the world, where elderly people end up struggling to live alone, like Hobson, rather than living with dignity amid family, like Sitaram Gawande.One cause of this change can be found in the nature of knowledge. When few people lived to be very old, elders were honored. Their store of knowledge was greatly useful. People often portrayed themselves as older to command respect. Modern society’s emphasis on youth is a complete reversal of this attitude. Technological advances are perceived as the territory of the young, and everyone wants to be younger. High-tech job opportunities are all over the world, and young people do not hesitate to leave their parents behind to pursue them.In developed countries, parents embrace the concept of a retirement filled with leisure activities. Parents are happy to begin living for themselves once children are grown. However, this system only works for young, healthy retirees, but not for those who cannot continue to be independent. Hobson, for example, was falling frequently and suffering memory lapses. Her doctor did tests and wrote prescriptions, but did not know what to do about her deteriorating condition. Neither did her family… About the Author With Instaread Summaries, you can get the summary of a book in 30 minutes or less. We read every chapter, summarize and analyze it for your convenience.

    Khiara M. Bridges investigates how race—commonly seen as biological in the medical world—is socially constructed among women dependent on the public healthcare system for prenatal care and childbirth. Bridges argues that race carries powerful material consequences for these women even when it is not explicitly named, showing how they are marginalized by the practices and assumptions of the clinic staff. Deftly weaving ethnographic evidence into broader discussions of Medicaid and racial disparities in infant and maternal mortality, Bridges shines new light on the politics of healthcare for the poor, demonstrating how the “medicalization” of social problems reproduces racial stereotypes and governs the bodies of poor women of color.

    As recently as 1918, a pandemic of influenza claimed over 50 million lives worldwide. The advent of drugs and vaccines led to an era of hope when we thought our battles with infectious disease were won, but our optimism has been eroded by the recognition that many pathogens have the capacity to transform themselves and escape our efforts to eradicate them. Are we now facing an inevitable repeat of a calamity such as the 1918 influenza pandemic or the Black Death? Can we anticipate and thwart such an event, or are we wilfully creating the conditions that would promote the emergence of new and highly virulent human infectious disease?Sunetra Gupta is Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at the University of Oxford specialising in infectious diseases. She holds a bachelor's degree from Princeton University and a Ph.D. from the University of London. She has been awarded the Scientific Medal by the Zoological Society of London and the Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award for her scientific research. She is also a novelist whose books have been awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Southern Arts Literature Prize, shortlisted for the Crossword Award, and longlisted for the DSC and Orange Prizes.

    But when detailing the many things that the poor have not, we often overlook the most critical--their health. The poor die sooner. Blacks die sooner. And poor urban blacks die sooner than almost all other Americans. In nearly four decades as a doctor at hospitals serving some of the poorest communities in Chicago, David A. Ansell, MD, has witnessed firsthand the lives behind these devastating statistics. In The Death Gap, he gives a grim survey of these realities, drawn from observations and stories of his patients"--

    The Black Panthers are most often remembered for their revolutionary rhetoric and militant action. Here Alondra Nelson deftly recovers an indispensable but lesser-known aspect of the organization’s broader struggle for social justice: health care. The Black Panther Party’s health activism—its network of free health clinics, its campaign to raise awareness about genetic disease, and its challenges to medical discrimination—was an expression of its founding political philosophy and also a recognition that poor blacks were both underserved by mainstream medicine and overexposed to its harms.Drawing on extensive historical research as well as interviews with former members of the Black Panther Party, Nelson argues that the Party’s focus on health care was both practical and ideological. Building on a long tradition of medical self-sufficiency among African Americans, the Panthers’ People’s Free Medical Clinics administered basic preventive care, tested for lead poisoning and hypertension, and helped with housing, employment, and social services. In 1971, the party launched a campaign to address sickle-cell anemia. In addition to establishing screening programs and educational outreach efforts, it exposed the racial biases of the medical system that had largely ignored sickle-cell anemia, a disease that predominantly affected people of African descent.The Black Panther Party’s understanding of health as a basic human right and its engagement with the social implications of genetics anticipated current debates about the politics of health and race. That legacy—and that struggle—continues today in the commitment of health activists and the fight for universal health care.

    But that picture is vastly incomplete. In this eye-opening book, physician Rishi Manchanda says that our health may depend even more on our social and environmental settings than it does on our most cutting-edge medical care. Manchanda argues that that the future of our health care depends on growing a new generation of health care practitioners. We need doctors who look upstream for the sources of our problems, rather than simply go for quick-hit symptomatic relief. These upstreamists, as he calls them, are doctors and nurses on the frontlines of medicine who see that health (like sickness) is more than a chemical equation that can be balanced with pills and procedures administered within clinic walls. They see that health begins in our everyday lives, in the places where we live, work, eat, and play. If our high-cost, sick-care system is to become a high-value, health care system, the upstreamists will show us the way. (Description taken from TED Library: http://www.ted.com/pages/tedbooks_lib...)

    We live in an era of continuous healthcare reforms, many of which focus on high volume, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness. This compelling, thoughtful book is the response of a practicing psychiatrist who explains how population-based reforms have diminished the relationship between doctors and patients, to the detriment of both. As an antidote to failed reforms and an alternative to stubbornly held traditions, Dr. Abraham M. Nussbaum suggests ways that doctors and patients can learn what it means to be ill and to seek medical assistance.   Using a variety of riveting stories from his own and others’ experiences, the author develops a series of metaphors to explore a doctor’s role in different healthcare reform scenarios: scientist, technician, author, gardener, teacher, servant, and witness. Each role influences what a physician sees when examining a person as a patient. Dr. Nussbaum cautions that true healthcare reform can happen only when those who practice medicine can see, and be seen by, their patients as fellow creatures. His memoir makes a hopeful appeal for change, and his insights reveal the direction that change must take.

    This essential resource includes the most current information on theory, research, and practice at individual, interpersonal, and community and group levels. This edition includes substantial new content on current and emerging theories of health communication, e-health, culturally diverse communities, health promotion, the impact of stress, the importance of networks and community, social marketing, and evaluation.

    Dr. Makary, one of the nation's leading health care experts, travels across America and details why health care has become a bubble. Drawing from on-the-ground stories, his research, and his own experience, The Price We Pay paints a vivid picture of price-gouging, middlemen, and a series of elusive money games in need of a serious shake-up. Dr. Makary shows how so much of health care spending goes to things that have nothing to do with health and what you can do about it. Dr. Makary challenges the medical establishment to remember medicine's noble heritage of caring for people when they are vulnerable.The Price We Pay offers a roadmap for everyday Americans and business leaders to get a better deal on their health care, and profiles the disruptors who are innovating medical care. The movement to restore medicine to its mission, Makary argues, is alive and well--a mission that can rebuild the public trust and save our country from the crushing cost of health care.

    

    In the era of Donald Trump, many lower- and middle-class white Americans are drawn to politicians who pledge to make their lives great again. But as Dying of Whiteness shows, the policies that result actually place white Americans at ever-greater risk of sickness and death.Physician Jonathan M. Metzl's quest to understand the health implications of "backlash governance" leads him across America's heartland. Interviewing a range of everyday Americans, he examines how racial resentment has fueled pro-gun laws in Missouri, resistance to the Affordable Care Act in Tennessee, and cuts to schools and social services in Kansas. And he shows these policies' costs: increasing deaths by gun suicide, rising dropout rates, and falling life expectancies. White Americans, Metzl argues, must reject the racial hierarchies that promise to aid them but in fact lead our nation to demise.