In Lost in the Long Transition, a group of scholars who conducted fieldwork research in post-dictatorship Chile during the transition to democracy critically examine the effects of the country's adherence to neoliberal economic development and social policies. Shifting government responsibility for social services and public resources to the private sector, reducing restrictions on foreign investment, and promoting free trade and export production, neoliberalism began during the Pinochet d...

This new collection turns a critical anthropological eye on the nature of health policy internationally. The authors reveal that in light of prevailing social inequalities, health policies may intend to protect public health, but in fact they often represent significant structural threats to the health and well being of the poor, ethnic minorities, women, and other subordinate groups. The volume focuses on the 'anthropology of policy,' which is concerned with the process of decision-making...

In The Wisdom of Whores, epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani brings honesty, wit and startling pragmatism to the tawdry front lines of sex and drugs. She explains how we could shut down HIV in most of the world with a few simple steps, with less money than we already have spent. We could do it now. But shockingly, it isn't happening. From the backstreets to the boardrooms, politics, ideology and cash have bulldozed through scientific evidence and common sense. The Wisdom of Whores...

While there have always been norms and customs around the use of drugs, explicit public policies--regulations, taxes, and prohibitions--designed to control drug abuse are a more recent phenomenon. Those policies sometimes have terrible side-effects: most prominently the development of criminal enterprises dealing in forbidden (or untaxed) drugs and the use of the profits of drug-dealing to finance insurgency and terrorism. Neither a drug-free world nor a world of free drugs seems to be on ...

The NHS is an institution close to the hearts of most Britons. People even profess to 'love it'. But it is now of pensionable age and, some would say, no longer fit for purpose. It isn't possible to reform the NHS until we accept that it cannot meet every demand made of it. We need to embrace the private sector rather than belittle or restrict it. This book does not seek to denigrate or dismantle the NHS, but to identify the issues that need to be addressed head on, whichever party is in p...

An authoritative, engaging, and nonpartisan look at what is wrong with American health care and how we can fix it—"told with skill and grace" (Jon Meacham, author of American Lion).Former Governor of Tennessee and CEO of HealthAmerica Corporation, Phil Bredesen "knows the American health care system inside and out. He knows both the theory and, more importantly, how things really work." In Fresh Medicine, he analyses the current state of American ...

Why, despite vast resources being expended on health and health care, is there still so much ill health and premature death? Why do massive inequalities in health, both within and between countries, remain? In this devastating critique, internationally renowned health economist Gavin Mooney places the responsibility for these problems firmly at the door of neoliberalism.Mooney analyses how power is exercised both in health-care systems and in society more generally. In doing so, it...

On July 12, 1966, the Medical Care Insurance Act was passed by the federal House of Commons after a ferocious public debate that pitted the vast majority of Canadians against a powerful alliance of business, insurance companies, and doctors.More than thirty years later, the same battle is being fought all over again. Only now, the forces opposed to medicare are more ideologically unified, more richly endowed, and tied to transnational corporations whose power exceeds that of entire...

"A major contribution not just to tobacco control research but also to research on global governance and public health . . . thorough [and] compelling." —Frank J. Chaloupka IV, Institute for Health Research and Policy, University of Illinois–ChicagoAs the era of globalization progressed, the tobacco industry capitalized on its elements—including trade liberalization, foreign direct investment, and global communications—to expand into countries where effective tobac...

A rapidly ageing population is the most significant demographic issue confronting Singapore in our lifetime. This has created new and increasing demands on Singapore's healthcare system and on the families of the older adults. The challenge is in providing a system of care that is humane, effective and sustainable financially. This requires coordination between state funded providers, the family and the community.This book offers a multi-disciplinary perspective by researchers from...

In recent years the pace of reform in health policy and the NHS has been relentless. But how are policies formed and implemented? This fully updated edition of a bestselling book explores the processes and institutions that make health policy, examining what constitutes health policy, where power lies, and what changes could be made to improve the quality of health policy making. Drawing on original research by the author over many years, and a wide range of secondary sources, the book exa...

Informed by a wealth of available research, between 1997 and 2010, the UK Labour government introduced a raft of policies to reduce health inequalities. Despite this, by most measures, the UK's health inequalities have continued to widen. This failure has prompted calls for new approaches to health inequalities research and some consensus that public health researchers ought to be more actively involved in 'public health advocacy'. Yet there is currently no agreement as to what these new r...