With extensive new data, Donald A. Barr illuminates the ways low socioeconomic status, race, and ethnicity interact to create and perpetuate health disparities in the United States. This thoroughly updated edition focuses on a new challenge the United States last experienced more than half a century ago: successive years of declining life expectancy. Barr addresses the causes of this decline, including what are commonly referred to as "deaths of despair"--Opiate overdose or suicide. Exploring the growing role geography plays in health disparities, Barr asks why people living in rural areas suffer the greatest increases in these deaths. He also analyzes recent changes under the Affordable Care Act and considers the literature on how race and ethnicity affect the way health care providers evaluate and treat patients.
Record details
ISBN:1421432595
ISBN:9781421432595
ISBN:1421432587
ISBN:9781421432588
ISBN:1421432579
ISBN:9781421432571
Physical Description:xvii, 356 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm print
Edition:Third edition.
Publisher:Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-346) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:
Introduction to the social roots of health disparities -- What is "health"? how should we define it? how should we measure it? -- The relationship between socioeconomic status and health, or, "they call it 'poor health' for a reason" -- Understanding how low social status leads to poor health -- Race, ethnicity, and health -- Race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and health : which is more important in affecting health status? -- Children's health disparities -- All things being equal, does race/ethnicity affect how physicians treat patients? -- Why does race/ethnicity affect the way physicians treat patients? -- When, if ever, is it appropriate to use a patient's race/ethnicity to help guide medical decisions? -- What should we do to reduce health disparities?
Book
