Pained: Uncomfortable Conversations about the Public's Health

· Oxford University Press
Ebook
312
Pages
Eligible
Ratings and reviews aren’t verified  Learn More

About this ebook

A POLITICAL PROVOCATION FROM A PAIR OF PHYSICIANS WRITING OUTSIDE THEIR LANE Americans care about their health. Americans pay lots of money in hopes of maintaining their health. So why are Americans so unhealthy? The reason is simple: as a country, the United States overinvests in medical care at the expense of the social, economic, and cultural forces that produce health. The rise of medicine as a cornerstone of American life and culture has coincided with a social and political devaluation of factors demonstrated to mean more to our vitality than anything else -- influences like where we live, work, and play; livable wages that create opportunity for healthy living; and gender and racial equity. In Pained, physicians Michael Stein and Sandro Galea push the conversation around American health where it belongs: toward matters of class, money, and culture. Across more than 50 essays and data illustrations, Pained casts a light on how the structural components of everyday life -- like school, housing, police, even cell phones -- ultimately determine who gets to be healthy in today's America. In doing so, it makes a case for reframing our political discourse in less myopic, more effectual terms. Accessible and surprising, political but not partisan, Pained is the urgent, uncomfortable conversation that American needs in this challenging moment. It will delight and infuriate readers of all political stripes.

About the author

MICHAEL STEIN is Professor and Chair of Health Law, Policy and Management of the School of Public Health at Boston University. He is primary care doctor and has been a leader in general medicine and substance use research and policy for two decades. He is Executive Editor of Public Health Post, a popular website on matters of population health. He is the author of six novels and two works of non-fiction. He has been interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air and has been included in Best American Essays Notables. SANDRO GALEA is Robert A. Knox Professor and Dean of the School of Public Health at Boston University. He is a past president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research and of the Interdisciplinary Society for Population Health Science, chair of the board of the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health, and is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Rate this ebook

Tell us what you think.

Reading information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.