Public Health

A searing analysis of health and illness under capitalism from hosts of the hit podcast "Death Panel" In this fiery, theoretical tour-de-force, Beatrice Adler-Bolton and Artie Vierkant offer an overview of life and death under capitalism and argue for a new global left politics aimed at severing the ties between capital and one of its primary tools: health. Written by co-hosts of the hit "Death Panel" podcast and longtime disability justice and healthcare activists Adler-Bolton and Vierkant, Health Communism first examines how capital has instrumentalized health, disability, madness, and illness to create a class seen as "surplus," regarded as a fiscal and social burden. Demarcating the healthy from the surplus, the worker from the "unfit" to work, the authors argue, serves not only to undermine solidarity but to mark whole populations for extraction by the industries that have emerged to manage and contain this "surplus" population. Health Communism then looks to the grave threat capital poses to global public health, and at the rare movements around the world that have successfully challenged the extractive economy of health. Ultimately, Adler-Bolton and Vierkant argue, we will not succeed in defeating capitalism until we sever health from capital.

A growing body of knowledge has revealed the profound impact of the social determinants of healthandmdash;the social, political, and economic factors apart from health care that influence health. The question is no longer if social factors are important influences on health, but rather howsocial factors operate and how to address them most effectively, efficiently, and equitably.Social Determinants of Health and Health Disparities is a comprehensive resource for students and educators to understand the wide-ranging effects of social and political factors, including racism, on individual health.

For most Western governments, defending against the threat of infectious disease is now an accepted security priority. Deciding what resources and policies to put in place to protect populations from pandemics, however, involves difficult political choices. How can we get these decisions right? And what are we prepared to sacrifice to achieve better health security?

This book aims to provide a collection of early ideas regarding the results of applying risk and resilience tools and strategies to COVID-19. Each chapter provides a distinct contribution to the new and rapidly growing literature on the developing COVID-19 pandemic from the vantage points of fields ranging from civil and environmental engineering to public policy, from urban planning to economics, and from public health to systems theory.

"Every year 9 million people are diagnosed with tuberculosis, every day more than 13,400 people are infected with AIDs, every 30 seconds malaria kills a child. Many people suffer and die young because they cannot access essential medicines. This book argues that people have a right to access these medicines and proposes some new Global Health Impact labelling, investment, and licensing strategies that encourage pharmaceutical companies to improve global health (global-health-impact.org/new). The idea is to rate these companies based on their medicines' impacts. Highly rated companies will get a Global Health Impact label to use on their products. Socially responsible investment companies and universities might also take the ratings into account in making investment or licensing decisions. After arguing that people do have a right to access essential medicines, this book explores this proposal, its philosophical justification, and its prospects for success"

Since the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic health care, public health, first responders, and other essential workers have been engaged in the most extensive emergency response in more than a century, whilst trust in science has been eroded and public health has been politicized. Against this context, the authors in this collection assess the potential mental health impacts, widening disparities, and needed interventions for future resilience of the public health workforce. What actions can be taken now to ensure more resilient systems post-pandemic? Focusing on the impacts of the pandemic on responder health across health care, public health, emergency management, and more, the chapters, written by experts in the field, provide an overview of the mental health impacts of disasters and emergencies on responders more broadly, and also highlight the inequitable impacts of the response among sectors of the workforce and populations who are socially or physically vulnerable. Closing with recommendations for changes that are needed to address gaps in capacity, COVID-19,