Unequal Health: The Scandal of Our Times

Description

Health inequalities are the most important inequalities of all. In the US and the UK these inequalities have now reached an extent not seen for over a century. Most people's health is much better now than then, but the gaps in life expectancy between regions, between cities, and between neighbourhoods within cities now surpass the worst measures over the last hundred years. In almost all other affluent countries, inequalities in health are lower and people live longer. In his new book, academic and writer Danny Dorling describes the current extent of inequalities in health as the scandal of our times. He provides nine new chapters and updates a wide selection of his highly influential writings on health, including international-peer reviewed studies, annotated lectures, newspaper articles, and interview transcripts, to create an accessible collection that is both contemporary and authoritative. As a whole the book shows conclusively that inequalities in health are the scandal of our times in the most unequal of rich nations and calls for immediate action to reduce these inequalities in the near future.

Danny Dorling is Professor for the Public Understanding of Social Science at the University of Sheffield. With a group of colleagues he helped create the website www.worldmapper.org which shows who has most and least in the world. He has been a member of the World Health Organization's Scientific Resource Group on Health Equity Analysis and Research, is a Patron of the charity RoadPeace, an Academician of the Academy of the Learned Societies in the Social Sciences, and Honorary President of the Society of Cartographers.

"The catchy titles, informal tone and non-technical language render the book accessible, readable and easy to understand. This volume provides a compelling plea that we should all do our utmost to overcome the growing inequalities in health." Public Health Today "A useful and valuable resource...a strongly argued called for politicians, activists, and citizens to embrace the ideas of the left." People, place and policy "...highlights of the robust collection include how New Labour's policies targeted but did not achieve reductions in health inequalities". Health Affairs "Professor Dorling is a meticulous scholar who talks personally and directly to the reader rather than to other academics, and with a powerful message: willful ignorance of the social causes of illness and death is taking us back to Victorian levels of inequality." Sebastian Kraemer, Tavistock Clinic London and Whittington Hospital London "Forensic, persuasive, original, impassioned, readable and occasionally even optimistic, Danny Dorling frames inequality in such a way as to demand action. His data and analysis are invaluable ammunition." Zoe Williams, The Guardian "The text provides a wide overview, from a range of different perespectvies about regional, national, and international health inequalities." Dr Patricia Owen, University of Keele. "The breadth and depth of scholarship displayed in this book is staggering - but what impresses just as much is how engagingly Danny Dorling communicates the important truths about the scandal of our times." Kate Pickett, Professor of Epidemiology, University of York and co-author of The Spirit Level "Useful for student nurses and understanding inequalities in health globally, as with individuals who migrate to different countries." Veronica Grant, University of Wolverhampton.