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In the face of the long domination of medical care by men, Women and Health explores from a variety of perspectives the twin issues of women in health care, and the health care of women. Specific sections address the women's health movement, birth control and childbirth, women in the health labor force, and the influence of women's employment on their health. Already acclaimed by scholars and health policy-makers alike, Women and Health is sure to become a standard sourcebook on an important and neglected subject.

Stress at work has become an increasingly important phenomenon in most western countries. With longer working hours, organizational "downsizing," and associated "intensification" of work, stress is becoming a concern in a wide range of work organizations. There is growing recognition of its effects on families, on health and welfare services, and within the broader community, as well as its more immediate effects on employee health and well-being and on organizational functioning. This book was written to give those dealing with work, health, and related areas an overview of work stress at the turn of the century. It provides a forum for debate on some of the latest issues in work stress. Work Stress: Studies of the Context, Content and Outcomes of Stress—A Book of Reading’s presents material within a framework that clarifies and highlights the role of work itself, of job design, and of organizational factors as potential causes of work stress. In addition, it highlights ways in which managers and others can design jobs and work so as to minimize work stress while maintaining or improving productivity.

This series of short books covers the major topics in British history since 1700. The approach is one which integrates narrative, sources, questions and activities for the practice of a range of historical skills. The narrative and the wide variety of sources are aimed at those of average ability. The whole series provides an evidence-based approach suitable for GCSE students. This volume shows how the development of medicine and the realization that cleaner conditions would lead to better health was a rather hit-and-miss process. Effective discoveries were achieved separately and important links, causes and effects came about by chance. The book also shows how the role of central government and town corporations changes as they battled with epidemics and discusses the implications that their involvement had for public health in general.

The ability to obtain health care is fundamental to the security, stability, and well-being of poor families. Government-sponsored programs provide temporary support, but as families leave welfare for work, they find themselves without access to coverage or care. The low-wage jobs that individuals in transition are typically able to secure provide few benefits yet often disqualify employees from receiving federal aid. Drawing upon statistical data and in-depth interviews with over five hundred families in Oregon, Karen Seccombe and Kim Hoffman assess the ways in which welfare reform affects the well-being of adults and children who leave the program for work. We hear of asthmatic children whose uninsured but working mothers cannot obtain the preventive medicines to keep them well, and stories of pregnant women receiving little or no prenatal care who end up in emergency rooms with life-threatening conditions. Representative of poor communities nationwide, the vivid stories recounted here illuminate the critical relationship between health insurance coverage and the ability to transition from welfare to work.

A biography of the physician who made significant contributions to the field of medicine as a researcher, professor, and public health advocate and who became the first woman ever to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

This book draws on a broad range of theoretical perspectives to bring to life social theories relating to health and illness. Using case studies it provides contrasting insights into the expanding jurisdiction of medicine over popular issues, including binge drinking, obesity, the prominence of therapy and the search for happiness. Full of student-friendly features such as summary boxes, clear sign-posting and cross-referencing, the book will appeal to students and academics to show how theory can be applied to issues in health and medicine. It is also relevant reading for health professionals who may lack knowledge of social theory and how it can help to understand the relationship between health, medicine and society. The book will also benefit students in the social sciences who are familiar with social theory and interested in how it can be applied to health, medicine and society.

The United States is the only major industrialized nation whose government does not guarantee the right of access to health care in time of need by providing universal and comprehensive health benefits coverage to its citizens. Yet, poll after poll show that the overwhelming majority of the U.S. population wants to see profound changes in the funding and organization of health care. But in spite of this popular desire, we do not see that change. Popular will is not realized through our political institutions. Why? The contributors to this book seek to answer this question. The book's sixteen chapters, presented in six parts, show how the implementation of a National Health Program (NHP) with single-payer funding and administration would save between 47,000 and 106,000 lives annually by providing comprehensive and universal coverage, while saving $10.2 billion. They also show that the problems of the U.S. health care sector an be resolved at even lower costs than are currently incurred. They show that the problem is not economic but political. The book shows how the insurance industry and the medicalindustrial complex are the major influences in the health policy of the United States. They, and not the people, are those who determine the policies of the U.S. government. The volume shows how the United States could indeed provide comprehensive and universal health benefits coverage to the majority of the U.S. population at lower costs than the current health care nonsystem. The problem is not economic but political. The fact that the United States does not have a National Health Program is because of the unresponsiveness of the U.S. political institutions to the needs and desires of the population. Those institutions are primarily responsive to economic, corporate and professional lobbies that shape the nature of the U.S. health sector. The establishment of a National Health Program requires the democratization of the U.S. political system. This democratization will require a popular mobilization that will force those institutions to respond to popular wishes and break the hold that those lobbies have over the political process. They are constraining the full development of health care rights, human rights, and democratic rights. These rights are clearly interrelated. This book provides a useful theoretical tool for development of these rights in the United States.

Describes the life of the renowned pediatrician and political activist whose book changed child care throughout the world.

This unique volume brings together 20 critical essays on aging within the context of the broad social, political, and economic factors that help shape and determine the realities of growing old. Rather than viewing aging in isolation, it explores the social creation of old age dependency and the profound influence of race, gender, and social class on what it means to grow old. It looks too at such topics as the "biomedicalization" of aging; the role of business and the media in changing societal images of the old; the fact and fiction behind "senior power"; the multibillion dollar nursing home industry; and the role of advanced capitalist nations in creating economic dependency among elders in the Third World.