Understanding Health Inequalities and Justice

New Conversations across the Disciplines

Edited by Mara Buchbinder, Michele Rivkin-Fish, Rebecca L. Walker

350 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 2 graphs, 1 table, notes, bibl., index

  • Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4696-3035-9
    Published: November 2016
  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4696-3034-2
    Published: November 2016
  • E-book EPUB ISBN: 978-1-4696-3036-6
    Published: September 2016
  • E-book PDF ISBN: 979-8-8908-5013-3
    Published: September 2016

Studies in Social Medicine

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The need for informed analyses of health policy is now greater than ever. The twelve essays in this volume show that public debates routinely bypass complex ethical, sociocultural, historical, and political questions about how we should address ideals of justice and equality in health care. Integrating perspectives from the humanities, social sciences, medicine, and public health, this volume illuminates the relationships between justice and health inequalities to enrich debates.

Understanding Health Inequalities and Justice explores three questions: How do scholars approach relations between health inequalities and ideals of justice? When do justice considerations inform solutions to health inequalities, and how do specific health inequalities affect perceptions of injustice? And how can diverse scholarly approaches contribute to better health policy? From addressing patient agency in an inequitable health care environment to examining how scholars of social justice and health care amass evidence, this volume promotes a richer understanding of health and justice and how to achieve both.

The contributors are Judith C. Barker, Paula Braveman, Paul Brodwin, Jami Suki Chang, Debra DeBruin, Leslie A. Dubbin, Sarah Horton, Carla C. Keirns, J. Paul Kelleher, Nicholas B. King, Eva Feder Kittay, Joan Liaschenko, Anne Drapkin Lyerly, Mary Faith Marshall, Carolyn Moxley Rouse, Jennifer Prah Ruger, and Janet K. Shim.

About the Authors

Mara Buchbinder is assistant professor of social medicine and adjunct associate professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
For more information about Mara Buchbinder, visit the Author Page.

Michele Rivkin-Fish is associate professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
For more information about Michele Rivkin-Fish, visit the Author Page.

Rebecca Walker is associate professor of social medicine and adjunct associate professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
For more information about Rebecca L. Walker, visit the Author Page.

Reviews

“Merits a place on the bookshelf of anyone interested in the myriad questions that attend health inequalities and justice.”--Science Magazine

"This ambitious and fascinating volume brings new interdisciplinary perspectives to the study of health inequity and justice. Readers will be rewarded with novel theoretical and methodological insights, and may find themselves rethinking core assumptions behind their work."--Beatrix Hoffman, Northern Illinois University

"With its interdisciplinary nature and strong individual essays, there is no question that this work makes important scholarly contributions to the literature on justice and health."--Nancy M. P. King, Wake Forest School of Medicine and Wake Forest University