A history of U.S. public health emergencies and how we can turn the tide.
Despite enormous advances in medical science and public health education over the last century, access to health care remains a dominant issue in American life. U.S. health care is often hailed as the best in the world, yet the public health emergencies of today often echo the public health emergencies of yesterday: consider the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918–19 and COVID-19, the displacement of the Dust Bowl and the havoc of Hurricane Maria, the Reagan administration’s antipathy toward the AIDS epidemic and the lack of accountability during the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.
Spanning the period from the presidency of Woodrow Wilson to that of Donald Trump, American Health Crisis illuminates how—despite the elevation of health care as a human right throughout the world—vulnerable communities in the United States continue to be victimized by structural inequalities across disparate geographies, income levels, and ethnic groups. Martin Halliwell views contemporary public health crises through the lens of historical and cultural revisionings, suturing individual events together into a narrative of calamity that has brought us to our current crisis in health politics. American Health Crisis considers the future of public health in the United States and, presenting a reinvigorated concept of health citizenship, argues that now is the moment to act for lasting change.
By:
Martin Halliwell
Imprint: University of California Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 38mm
Weight: 771g
ISBN: 9780520379404
ISBN 10: 0520379403
Pages: 424
Publication Date: 18 May 2021
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Preface Introduction 1918: Woodrow Wilson, Crisis, and the Arc of Public Health Part 1: Geographies of Vulnerability: Environmental Health Crises 1. Disaster: Mississippi Flood, Buffalo Creek, Hurricane Katrina 2. Poverty: Dust Bowl, Urban Ghetto, Indian Reservation 3. Pollution: Nuclear Fallout, Water Contamination, Climate Change Part 2: States of Vulnerability: Crises of Prevention and Treatment 4. Virus: Influenza, Polio, HIV/AIDS 5. Care: Postwar Hospitals, Community Action, Vet Centers 6. Drugs: Methadone, Diazepam, Fentanyl Conclusion 2018: Obama, Trump, and the Future of Health Citizenship Coda 2020 Acknowledgments Notes Selected Bibliography Index
Martin Halliwell is Professor of American Studies at the University of Leicester. He has authored and edited fourteen books, including Therapeutic Revolutions: Medicine, Psychiatry, and American Culture, 1945–1970; Voices of Mental Health: Medicine, Politics, and American Culture, 1970–2000; and The Edinburgh Companion to the Politics of American Health.
Reviews for American Health Crisis: One Hundred Years of Panic, Planning, and Politics
An ambitious work. . . .a book on public health can and should only be written in a way that is as inclusive, reflective, accessible in language, and structured as Halliwell's. It is an important read for any practitioner of public health. * Amerikastudien/American Studies: A Quarterly *