[.ca] Race, Ethnicity, and Health: A Public Health Reader (ISBN 0787964514)

Used it in class:
We used this book in my class at this past semester. It was a good overview of the key studies in health disparities. I learned alot about health disparities. Overall I found this book to be a good resource for my class.

For everyone interested in health care:
This readable compendium of stellar research is important reading for anyone involved in or interested in health care today. It is also an escellent compilation of well-designed studies that challenge status quo thinking; it would be an excellent text for a research methodology course. This Public Health reader is also appropiratie for individual readings as well as a text for courses in nursing, medicine, public health, social policy, and health care administration. The readings are compelling, disturbing, and encouraging. The book does a good job of addressing historical and political factors, presenting startling health disparity data, documenting differential health care experiences, demonstrating health care provider biases in perceptions of patients and subsequent treatment, and outlining related research challenges. The book leaves the reader wtih a fresh understanding of national health disparies, the issues our nation faces in achieving better health for all, and the need for proactrve policies, procedures, and research that can close the gap between majority and minority health and health care,

Comprehensive:
A very comprehensive overview of the issues around minority health in the United States. Does not deal with international issues, but the topic of race, ethnitity and health in the US is big enough. You are interested in learning about the topic, this is a very good place to start. You will be depressed after reading some of this. The studies described in the book are convincing and you can't help but conclude that we have a serious problem with regard to minority health.

A Much Needed Corrective to the Turnock position:
There are many public health "experts," most notably Barney Turnock of UIC, who spend entire careers re-writing the same vapid books about public health. These authors have a tendency to blithely summarize highly abstract and idealized models of how public health systems should work, rather than analyzing and questioning the ways in which public health systems DO work. And it goes without saying that people like Turnock never examine the ways in which race and economic class determine the availability and quality of health care available - they prefer to believe that these issues have nothing to do with the American health care system. This book is valuable precisely because its author is someone who actually opens his eyes to the world around him and captures the complexities of what he sees. While authors like Turnock help perpetuate health care systems that lead directly to the death and illness of anyone below the poverty line, real experts like LaVeist are tackling the kind of questions we need to answer in order to create a more just and equitable system. This book is a godsend for anyone who actually wants to learn about public health in the real world - not just the fantasy world of lazy, overprivileged blinkered stooges like Turnock and his brainless Ogden Avenue minions. Here we see real discussions of the relationship between race and various health outcomes, with a keen eye toward the social heirarchies causing these trends and a vision for a better future. Please buy this book, and stay away from the intellectual bubble gum peddled by dishonest public health professors like Turnock.