This authoritative volume is a rich source of information and penetrating analyses regarding the diverse pathways by which society influences health. Widely recognized scholars from North America and Europe discuss the immediate social environments of family, workplace, and community and the more pervasive effects of race and gender relations, social class, culture and the political economy.
How do some families create more healthful environments for their children? How do we explain the health status differences between men and women, blacks and whites, and different communities or cultures? How is stress generated in the workplace? What accounts for the persistent social class differences in mortality rates? Why do societies experience higher rates of mortality after economic recession? Such fundamental questions about the social determinants of health are discussed in depth in this wide-ranging and authoritative book. Well-known contributors from North America and Europe assess the evidence for the diverse ways by which society influences health and provide conceptual frameworks for understanding these relationships. The book opens with a broad review of research on the social environment's contribution to health status and then addresses particular social factors: the family, the community, race, gender, class, the economy, the workplace and culture. The concluding two chapters examine the contribution of medicine to the improved health of Americans and recast the health care policy debate in a broad social policy context.
What is presented here, in an unusually coherent uniting theme for an edited collection, is the 'society and health perspective' on epidemiology and public health ... this volume may well prove to have been an important landmark in the debate on the relationship between society and health.
