The death gap : how inequality kills / David A. Ansell, MD.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ansell, David A., author.

Contributor:

George R. Fink Memorial Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social medicine--United States.

Social medicine.

Health and race.

Health--Social aspects.

Racism.

Poverty--Health aspects.

Poverty.

Equality--Health aspects.

United States.

Equality--Health aspects--United States.

Equality.

Poverty--Health aspects--United States.

Racism--Health aspects--United States.

Health--Social aspects--United States.

Health.

Health and race--United States.

Discrimination in medical care--United States.

Discrimination in medical care.

Medical policy--United States.

Medical policy.

Delivery of Health Care--ethics.

Social Medicine.

Medical Subjects:

Delivery of Health Care--ethics.

Social Medicine.

United States.

Physical Description:

xviii, 235 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Summary:

We hear plenty about the widening income gap between the rich and the poor in America and about the expanding distance dividing the haves and the have-nots. But when detailing the many things that the poor have not, we often overlook the most critical their health. The poor die sooner. Blacks die sooner. And poor urban blacks die sooner than almost all other Americans. In nearly four decades as a doctor at hospitals serving some of the poorest communities in Chicago, David Ansell has witnessed the lives behind these devastating statistics firsthand. In 'The Death Gap', he gives a grim survey of these realities, drawn from observations and stories of his patients. While the contrasts and disparities in Chicago's communities are particularly stark, the death gap is truly a nationwide epidemic as Ansell shows, there is a thirty-five-year difference in life expectancy between the healthiest and wealthiest and the poorest and sickest American neighborhoods. It doesn't need to be this way; such divisions are not inevitable. Ansell calls out the social and cultural arguments that have been raised as ways of explaining or excusing these gaps, and he lays bare the structural violence the racism, economic exploitation, and discrimination that is really to blame. Inequality is a disease, Ansell argues, and we need to treat and eradicate it as we would any major illness. To do so, he outlines a vision that will provide the foundation for a healthier nation for all.

Contents:

Preface: one street, two worlds

American roulette. American roulette

Structural violence and the death gap

Location, location, location

Perception is reality

The three Bs: beliefs, behavior, biology

Trapped by inequity. Fire and rain: life and death in natural disasters

Mass incarceration, premature death, and community health

Immigration status and health inequality

Health care inequality. The US health care system: separate and unequal

The poison pill: the Affordable Care Act

The cure. Community efficacy and the death gap.

Community activism against structural violence

Observe, judge, act.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [195]-222) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the George R. Fink Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

9780226428154

022642815X

OCLC:

958779966