Society and Population Health Reader

A groundbreaking and controversial two-volume reader on the connections between social structure and public health. In recent years, a whole new field of inquiry on the connections between society and health has arisen from the work of leading social scientists and medical researchers around the world. This pioneering two-volume reader collects for the first time the substance of their main finding: that life expectancy, illness, and other health factors across the class spectrum are closely related to the structure of a given society, and that variations of health within a population are primarily related to socio-structural factors, including income inequality, educational differences, lack of opportunities, and racism. Volume II, A State Perspective, features in-depth studies of the links between health and childhood development, race and ethnicity, social status, stress, and other socio-cultural factors. It also features a section on the implications of its findings at the state and municipal level, and suggestions for policy changes that would improve health throughout society. Sure to provoke widespread debate and controversy, The Society and Population Health Reader brings to professional, academic, and general readers the most important research findings and dramatic implications for public policy of this fascinating new field.

Alvin R. Tarlov, M.D. is director of the Texas Program in Society and Health Robert F. St. Peter is the president of the Kansas Health Institute