Health Activism


Book Description

The first book to be published on a topic which is rising on the agenda in health studies and public health. The book will be recommended reading for those studying and working in public health and health promotion.




Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired


Book Description

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired moves beyond the depiction of African Americans as mere recipients of aid or as victims of neglect and highlights the ways black health activists created public health programs and influenced public policy at every opportunity. Smith also sheds new light on the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment by situating it within the context of black public health activity, reminding us that public health work had oppressive as well as progressive consequences.




Social Epidemiology


Book Description

By tracking the distribution of disease and pinpointing relevant risk factors, social epidemiology reveals how social problems are intrinsically linked to the health of populations. The practice also takes into account the psychosocial, biological, and medical determinants of disease and health, encouraging a rich and multidisciplinary approach to analyzing and solving complex contemporary social issues. This book provides a clear and comprehensive set of tools for practice. Julie Cwikel begins with an overview of the historical roots of public health and social medicine and shows how they formed the theoretical basis for current social epidemiological methods. Cwikel then explains the theoretical and programmatic tools social epidemiologists use in their research, program planning, and evaluation. In conclusion, Cwikel demonstrates how the SOCEPID model can be applied to a range of topics, including chronic illness, obesity, violence prevention, occupational health, sexually transmitted diseases (especially HIV), environmental hazards, and addressing the needs of vulnerable populations such as immigrants and trafficked women. With compelling authority, Cwikel shows readers how the exciting and growing field of social epidemiology is both practical and activist, drawing on cutting-edge empirical findings to conduct policymaking research and promote health at both the personal and population levels.




Healthcare Activism


Book Description

What is the role of activists and civil society in defining and defending the collective good in healthcare, especially in cases where that good seems to be heavily shaped by market dynamics? Presenting conceptual and empirical studies from a variety of healthcare contexts and theoretical perspectives, this book addresses this vital question by drawing together multidisciplinary scholarship from Science and Technology Studies, Sociology, Organisation Studies, Marketing, Philosophy, and Public Health. Healthcare has undergone three major changes over the past decades: the advent of personalized medicine, the marketization of public care systems, and the digitalization of healthcare services. This book maps these changes and illustrates the extent to which they are interlinked to produce a seemingly unstoppable move toward individualization in healthcare. The book also highlights the tensions and challenges arising from these interlinkages, and traces how activists react to these tensions to argue for and defend the common good. It thus sketches a multifaceted picture of healthcare activism in the 21st century as civil society responds to these dynamics at the crossroads of markets and morals, economic and social justifications, individual and collective, and digital and non-digital worlds. Crucially, it also highlights potential solutions for heightening patient voices and broadening participation in healthcare markets in a post Covid-19 world.




Womanist AIDS Activism in the United States


Book Description

Womanist AIDS Activism in the United States: “It’s Who We Are” is an in-depth exploration of AIDS advocacy work among Black women. Based on interviews gathered from thirty-six Black women AIDS activists from across the nation, Angelique Harris and Omar Mushtaq examine the ways in which race, gender, sexuality, and spirituality influence the motivations and approaches behind the efforts of the women in the study. The authors use womanism—an epistemological framework that centers the world views of women of color—to better situate this activism within a larger sociocultural and historical context. They find that identity, spirituality, emotions, and experiences with AIDS knowledge all influence the ways in which these activists approached their community activism work. The authors analyze womanism in detail and propose ways in which this framework can be applied more broadly in examinations of community engagement among women of color, and specifically Black women.




South African AIDS Activism and Global Health Politics


Book Description

What did South African AIDS activists contribute, politically, to early international advocacy for free HIV medicines for the world's poor? Mandisa Mbali demonstrates that South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) gave moral legitimacy to the international movement which enabled it to effectively push for new models of global health diplomacy and governance. The TAC rapidly acquired moral credibility, she argues, because of its leaders' anti-apartheid political backgrounds, its successful human rights-based litigation and its effective popularization of AIDS-related science. The country's arresting democratic transition in 1994 enabled South African activists to form transnational alliances. Its new Constitution provided novel opportunities for legal activism, such as the TAC's advocacy against multinational pharmaceutical companies and the South African government. Mbali's history of the TAC sheds light on its evolution into an influential force for global health justice.




All Health Politics Is Local


Book Description

Health is political. It entails fierce battles over the allocation of resources, arguments over the imposition of regulations, and the mediation of dueling public sentiments—all conflicts that are often narrated from a national, top-down view. In All Health Politics Is Local, Merlin Chowkwanyun shifts our focus, taking us to four very different places—New York City, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Central Appalachia—to experience a national story through a regional lens. He shows how racial uprisings in the 1960s catalyzed the creation of new medical infrastructure for those long denied it, what local authorities did to curb air pollution so toxic that it made residents choke and cry, how community health activists and bureaucrats fought over who'd control facilities long run by insular elites, and what a national coal boom did to community ecology and health. All Health Politics Is Local shatters the notion of a single national health agenda. Health is and has always been political, shaped both by formal policy at the highest levels and by grassroots community battles far below.




Cancer Activism


Book Description

The first comprehensive study of the breast cancer and the prostate cancer movements




Health Activism


Book Description

Activism is action on behalf of a cause, action that goes beyond what is conventional or routine and is relative to the actions by others. Health activism is a growing area of interest for many who work to improve health at both national and international levels because it offers a more direct approach to achieve lasting social and political change. This book, for the first time, provides a clear foundation to the theory, evidence-base and strategies that can be harnessed to bring about change to improve the lives and health of others. For anyone working to improve the health of groups and communities, this will be thought-provoking reading. It has particular relevance for postgraduate students and practitioners in public health and health promotion.




Body and Soul


Book Description

Alondra Nelson recovers a lesser-known aspect of The Black Panther Party's broader struggle for social justice: health care. Nelson argues that the Party's focus on health care was practical and ideological and that their understanding of health as a basic human right and its engagement with the social implications of genetics anticipated current debates about the politics of health and race.