Introduces a vision for the future of health equity and explains practical policy measures for how to achieve it.
Health inequity is one of the defining problems of our time. But current efforts to address the problem focus on mitigating the harms of injustice rather than confronting injustice itself. In Equal Care, Seth A. Berkowitz, MD, MPH, offers an innovative vision for the future of health equity by examining the social mechanisms that link injustice to poor health. He also presents practical policies designed to create a system of social relations that ensures equal care for everyone.
As Berkowitz illustrates, the project of social democracy works to improve health by bringing relationships of equality to the sites of human cooperation: in civil society, in political processes, and in economic activities. This book synthesizes three elements necessary for such a project—normative justification, mechanistic knowledge, and technical proficiency—into a practical vision of how to create health equity. Drawing from the fields of medicine, social epidemiology, sociology, economics, political science, philosophy, and more, Berkowitz makes clear that health inequity is social failure embodied, and the only true cures are political. Equal Care is essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of health equity.
List of Figures and Tables
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
2. What Is Health Equity?
3. Equality of What?
4. Democratic Equality
5. How Injustice Harms Health
6. Inegalitarian Ideologies and Health
7. The Theory of the Welfare State
8. Economics of the Welfare State
9. Financing the Welfare State
10. Practice of the Welfare State
11. Transfer Income Policy I: In-Kind Services
12. Transfer Income Policy II: Cash Benefits
13. Factor Income Policy
14. Civil and Political Rights
15. Conclusions
References
Index
Height:229
Width:152
Spine:29
Weight:635.00