Against Health

Looks at the cultural meanings of health, exploring it's ideologies, arguing that obtaining health is difficult because of cultural conventions, and offering ways to develop healthier options for one's body.

You see someone smoking a cigarette and say,“Smoking is bad for your health,” when what you mean is, “You are a bad person because you smoke.” You encounter someone whose body size you deem excessive, and say, “Obesity is bad for your health,” when what you mean is, “You are lazy, unsightly, or weak of will.” You see a woman bottle-feeding an infant and say,“Breastfeeding is better for that child’s health,” when what you mean is that the woman must be a bad parent. You see the smokers, the overeaters, the bottle-feeders, and affirm your own health in the process. In these and countless other instances, the perception of your own health depends in part on your value judgments about others, and appealing to health allows for a set of moral assumptions to fly stealthily under the radar. Against Health argues that health is a concept, a norm, and a set of bodily practices whose ideological work is often rendered invisible by the assumption that it is a monolithic, universal good. And, that disparities in the incidence and prevalence of disease are closely linked to disparities in income and social support. To be clear, the book's stand against health is not a stand against the authenticity of people's attempts to ward off suffering. Against Health instead claims that individual strivings for health are, in some instances, rendered more difficult by the ways in which health is culturally configured and socially sustained. The book intervenes into current political debates about health in two ways. First, Against Health compellingly unpacks the divergent cultural meanings of health and explores the ideologies involved in its construction. Second, the authors present strategies for moving forward. They ask, what new possibilities and alliances arise? What new forms of activism or coalition can we create? What are our prospects for well-being? In short, what have we got if we ain't got health? Against Health ultimately argues that the conversations doctors, patients, politicians, activists, consumers, and policymakers have about health are enriched by recognizing that, when talking about health, they are not all talking about the same thing. And, that articulating the disparate valences of “health” can lead to deeper, more productive, and indeed more healthy interactions about our bodies.

Called "a must-read" by the AMA, this book reveals the problems within the HMO system that could cost people their lives. A "chilling portrait of the many ways in which HMOs can be hazardous to your health", says the "Cleveland Plain Dealer".

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

This book has three main parts: (1) the challenges of the U.S. health care system; (2) the impacts of economic recessions and high unemployment on the U.S. population’s health; and (3) recommendations or a look into what might improve the health care system. Part I, through a dissection of the challenges faced by the U.S. health care system, exposes the particularities and the vulnerabilities of the system. It shows the role played by businesses and employment in the U.S. population’s health and describes major challenges of the health care system such as astronomical health care costs, the average family health spending – which is exceedingly high, wasteful spending, death due to inaccessibility to health care, and the hardships that medical costs created for more than half of Americans. Part II is an analysis as to why do economic recessions have health implications. That analysis is done by considering the health implications of economic recessions both at the micro and macroeconomic levels and by considering the societal costs of uninsurance or inaccessibility to health care due to economic recessions and high unemployment. Part III primarily focuses on what can make the system better, that is more efficient and more cost-effective. Ironically, as Part III argues, there are a myriad of feasible recommendations that are waiting to be fully explored, agreed upon, adopted and implemented nationwide: · Design labor and fiscal policies aimed at preventing economic recessions and high unemployment o Blend labor and fiscal policies into structural reforms · Create job security and take other steps that guarantee health care security during financial hardship · Improve health outcomes through nationwide permanent supportive housing to combat chronic homelessness during economic recessions and high unemployment · Prioritize the use of more cost-effective medical technologies o Promote telemedicine to reduce costs and improve accessibility to health care · Eliminate health disparities thanks to the democratization of health care · Promote health literacy and the valorization of communities · Design policies or procedures that 1) promote health care costs reduction and efficiency through affordable insurance coverage and 2) eliminate Wasteful spending: o Extend drug coverage and implement cost-effective pricing policies o Extend coverage of more medical procedures and implement cost-effective policies On the other hand, Part III also sells the idea of a thorough and bold revolution in our health care system, which would make health care a right of citizenship. It does so by analyzing the political, social, ethical, and economic aspects of the issue. Furthermore, it argues that the relationship between universal health care and economics justifies the notion of “health care as a right of citizenship.”

Racial and ethnic disparities in health care are known to reflect access to care and other issues that arise from differing socioeconomic conditions. There is, however, increasing evidence that even after such differences are accounted for, race and ethnicity remain significant predictors of the quality of health care received. In Unequal Treatment, a panel of experts documents this evidence and explores how persons of color experience the health care environment. The book examines how disparities in treatment may arise in health care systems and looks at aspects of the clinical encounter that may contribute to such disparities. Patients' and providers' attitudes, expectations, and behavior are analyzed. How to intervene? Unequal Treatment offers recommendations for improvements in medical care financing, allocation of care, availability of language translation, community-based care, and other arenas. The committee highlights the potential of cross-cultural education to improve provider-patient communication and offers a detailed look at how to integrate cross-cultural learning within the health professions. The book concludes with recommendations for data collection and research initiatives. Unequal Treatment will be vitally important to health care policymakers, administrators, providers, educators, and students as well as advocates for people of color.

Innovating Health Against Future Pandemics covers the key aspects which drive heterogeneity in an individual's response to COVID-19, including age, sex, genetic makeup, immune responses, comorbidities, and viral strains/loads. This book also reviews the case examples from other disciplines to highlight areas where precision medicine and AI could be applied for the improvement of pandemic management. This includes research, primary and secondary prevention, isolation/tracking, hospitalization and patient management, diagnosis, and treatments. Lastly, drawing on past experiences for each of the areas this book provides practical recommendations to manage future pandemics. COVID-19 offered an unprecedented occasion to test the impact of digitally enabled solutions within precision medicine for public health and for accelerating their deployment and adoption. Explores the benefits of AI technologies in triage, diagnosis, and risk prediction Reviews the innovative clinical trial designs in terms of platforms and decentralization Covers Healthcare workload, including remote monitoring to help prevent burnout