Healthcare Activism

Healthcare has undergone major changes in personalization, marketization, and digitalization in recent decades. Through conceptual and empirical studies from a variety of healthcare contexts, this book explores the role of activists and civil society in defining and defending the collective good in healthcare and its changing landscape.---

Healthcare has undergone major changes in personalization, marketization, and digitalization in recent decades. Through conceptual and empirical studies from a variety of healthcare contexts, this book explores the role of activists and civil society in defining and defending the collective good in healthcare and its changing landscape.

In this book the author examines the question of the compatibility of politics, policy-making, and professional work. Based on nineteen case studies of organizations, Hoffman looks at “what happened” as doctors and planners set out to redistribute services to minorities and the poor between 1960 and 1980.

Praise for Improving Healthcare Through Advocacy A Guide for the Health and Helping Professions "Bruce Jansson's thoughtful and innovative book will appeal to students in social work, nursing, and public health as well as those working in the health field of practice. The case examples are extraordinary, and Jansson provides the ideas, context, and theoretical base for readers to acquire the skills of advocacy in healthcare. This is by far the best advocacy book I have seen." —Gary Rosenberg, PhD Director, Division of Social Work and Behavioral Science Mount Sinai School of Medicine "Improving Healthcare Through Advocacy is a terrific description of opportunities for advocacy intervention and provides the skill sets necessary for effective advocacy. A needed book." —Laura Weil, LCSW Director, Health Advocacy Program Sarah Lawrence College "Improving Healthcare Through Advocacy is an invaluable resource for practitioners working in the healthcare field as well as for students. It very thoroughly covers healthcare advocacy issues, contains real-world case examples, and provides a clear, step-by-step framework for practicing advocacy." —Kimberly Campbell, ACSW, LCSW Lecturer, Department of Social Work Ball State University An important resource for all who strive for the best in healthcare treatment for their patients, themselves, and the nation Bestselling author and award-winning researcher Bruce S. Jansson uses an intervention framework to illustrate how everyone in the healthcare system can advocate effectively, not just for better healthcare delivery to individual clients but for the necessary policy change that will deliver long- term solutions to our nation's healthcare crisis as well. Improving Healthcare Through Advocacy provides professionals with: Tools to move from traditional services to case advocacy and policy advocacy tasks Over 100 case studies from the perspective of patients, healthcare providers, and others who relate the experiences they have encountered in the healthcare system and share the wisdom they have learned Practical tips on how to provide effective advocacy and bring about positive and long-term change in this complex environment

This compelling book traces the lives of ten doctors who have devoted their careers to helping disadvantaged patients while forwarding important social issues. An inspiring collection of dramatic autobiographical accounts, The Doctor-Activist shows how the exceptional humanity and idealism of these doctors helped to advance many struggles and movements, including civil rights, women's rights, world peace, environmental protection, and universal access to health care, among others. Considered together, their stories raise many of the salient issues and ethical questions that confront the doctor choosing, creating, and living the life of an activist.

Examines the women's health movement of the 1990s and how activists achieved policy changes in the areas of medical research, HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, and violence against women. -- Back cover.

Few contemporary social problems in the U.S. affect more people daily than those within the American health care system. Social Movements and the Transformation of American Health Care is the first collection of essays to examine dynamics of change in health care institutions through the lens of contemporary theory and research on collective action. Gathering scholars from medicine, health policy, history, sociology, and political science, the book considers health-related social movements from four distinct levels, concentrating on movements seeking changes in the regulation, financing, and distribution of health resources; changes in institutions in public health, bio-ethics, and other fields; interactions between social movements and professions; and the cultural dominance of the medical model, and the difficulties for framing and legitimizing new issues in health care it poses. At a time when American health care is long overdue for major changes, this book takes an essential look at movements, policies, and institutions to identify the common constraints and opportunities for reform within the health care system.

What is the role of activists and civil society in defining and defending the collective good in healthcare, especially in cases where that good seems to be heavily shaped by market dynamics? Presenting conceptual and empirical studies from a variety of healthcare contexts and theoretical perspectives, this book addresses this vital question by drawing together multidisciplinary scholarship from Science and Technology Studies, Sociology, Organisation Studies, Marketing, Philosophy, and Public Health. Healthcare has undergone three major changes over the past decades: the advent of personalized medicine, the marketization of public care systems, and the digitalization of healthcare services. This book maps these changes and illustrates the extent to which they are interlinked to produce a seemingly unstoppable move toward individualization in healthcare. The book also highlights the tensions and challenges arising from these interlinkages, and traces how activists react to these tensions to argue for and defend the common good. It thus sketches a multifaceted picture of healthcare activism in the 21st century as civil society responds to these dynamics at the crossroads of markets and morals, economic and social justifications, individual and collective, and digital and non-digital worlds. Crucially, it also highlights potential solutions for heightening patient voices and broadening participation in healthcare markets in a post Covid-19 world.