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Political and Economic Determinants of Population Health and Well-Being: Controversies and Developments
Edited by Vicente Navarro and Carles Muntaner
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Policy, Politics, Health and Medicine Series, Vicente Navarro, Series Editor
You can read the
Introduction for free right now, just click here.
IN PRAISE OF
"Political and Economic Determinants of Population Health and Well-Being is a superb
compendium of research and debate on a question of fundamental importance—the
relationship between social inequality and human well-being. It should convince all
serious scholars that the study of class, race, gender, and other forms of inequality
should be at the center of the agenda of public health research in the 21st century."
—Erik Olin Wright, Vilas Distinguished Professor, University of Wisconsin
"This remarkable collection explores, from many perspectives, some of the most
crucial problems of social policy of the coming years, not least in the United
States. These penetrating essays range from theoretical and analytic dissection of
fundamental moral, political, and economic issues to close investigation of a wide
variety of critically important cases. For those concerned about what lies ahead—and
what we can and should do about it—the collection is not only valuable but
indispensable."
—Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus, MIT
"It was fascinating for me to go through this mine of information, analysis, and
interpretation; to find a rigorous academic documentation interlaced with rejections
of injustice; to understand how often the health effects of class, gender, race, and
social background are concealed; to see the extent to which conservative assumptions
are contradicted by strong evidence; to verify the positive health effects of the
work of labor unions; to see how many groups defend health as a public good; and to
gain so many ideas and insights for research and for action.
Last year, the International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO declared: ‘Health has a
double moral value, because it is essential for the quality of life and for life
itself, and is instrumental as a condition for freedom. The inequality between rich
and poor—at the level of individuals, communities, and nations—is increasingly
deeply felt in the area of health and healthcare, thereby contributing to the
desperation and injustice that prevail and continue to increase in other h
ealth-related fields such as food, income, and education.’ This book provides the
best analysis of these conditions, the broadest description of the realities in the
United States and worldwide, and the stimulus for further research and action."
—Giovanni Berlinguer, University of Rome, Italy
"Vicente Navarro and Carles Muntaner offer readers a splendid collection of 30 essays and research articles about
a crucial and controversial topic—the determinants of population health and quality of life. These articles were
published in recent years in the International Journal of Health Services, and have now been complied into
a book that will will appeal to readers across many fields."
—Roberta Garner, Sociology Department, DePaul University, Science & Society
ABOUT THE BOOK
The field of social inequalities in health continues its vigorous growth in the early years of the 21st century.
This volume, following in the footsteps of Vicente Navarro’s edited collection The Political Economy of Social
Inequalities, is a compilation of recent contributions to the areas of social epidemiology, health disparities, health
economics, and health services research. The overarching theme is to describe and explain the ever-growing health
inequalities across social class, race, and gender, as well as neighborhood, city, region, country, and continent. The
approach of this book is distinctly multi-, trans-, and interdisciplinary: the fields of public health, population health,
epidemiology, economics, sociology, political science, philosophy, medicine, and history are all represented here.
Part I, on social policy, includes Navarro’s critique of Sen’s influential Development As Freedom, Sen’s own
analysis of gender and development, a comparison of the consequences of Swedish and British labor market policies,
and several analyses of the evolution of international economic inequalities. Part II centers on the contested concept
of globalization, with an international empirical analysis of its consequences for global well-being over the last two
decades, a description of growing health inequalities by income in the United States since the 1960s, and an account
of the expansion of managed care in semiperipheral countries. Part III, on health policy, presents a critique of a
controversial 2000 WHO report and two analyses of contemporary U.S. health policy. Part IV, on health care, provides
international empirical evidence on the negative effects of privatization, in particular in hospitals, nursing homes,
and health services utilization. Part V focuses on occupational health and labor unions, including the crucial role of
unions in protecting worker’s safety and health. One chapter tells the story of New York’s legendary SEIU 1199;
another addresses the neglected area of women’s occupational health; another provides dramatic case studies on
violations of workers’ freedom of association and their consequences. Part VI, on social capital versus class, gender,
and race, deals with one of the most heated theoretical and empirical debates in contemporary social epidemiology.
Most of the contributors provide arguments and data that challenge communitarian approaches to health disparities,
focusing instead on political factors, welfare state provisions, and class, race, and gender inequalities as major
sources of inequalities in health. Finally, Part VII addresses the role of ideology, theory, and research policy in the
production and maintenance of social inequalities in health. Ideology is not usually seen as a social determinant of
population health, but the contributors here show the role of ideology in shaping scientific views about race and
health disparities, as well as the implicit understanding of determinants of health and disease. The final chapter
presents a critical overview of recent ideological attempts at discrediting empirical research on health disparities and
social epidemiology.
INTENDED AUDIENCE
Public health scholars and practitioners, social epidemiologists, social scientists interested in health issues
including sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians, economists, and health psychologists.
ABOUT THE EDITORS
Carles Muntaner MD, PhD is a professor of behavioral and Community Health Nursing
and Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the University of Maryland-Baltimore. His
research focuses on the explanation of social inequalities in health in particular on the effects of
class, race, ethic and gender structures on mental health. He also studies the effects of work
organization on mental health among low-income and contingent workers, in particular nurse
assistants and home care workers.
Vicente Navarro is professor of health and public policy, sociology, and policy studies at
The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and professor of political and social
sciences at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain. A founder and past president of
the International Association of Health Policy and founder and editor-in-chief of the
International Journal of Health Services, he has written extensively on health and public policy
themes.
Dr. Navarro is the author of fifteen books translated into several languages and of many
articles on these themes. His latest books are The Politics of Health Policy (Blackwell) and
Neoliberalismo y Estado del Bienestar, Globalizacion Economica Poder Politico y Estado del
Bienestar (Ariel Sociedad Economica).
INTENDED AUDIENCE
Public health scholars and practitioners, social epidemiologists, social scientists interested in
health issues including sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians, economists,
and health psychologists.
Please Note: Political and Economic Determinants of Population Health and Well-Being is available in both cloth and paperbound.
To order the paperbound version use the Add to Cart link on the right.
To order the clothbound version, click here.
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