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Pained: Uncomfortable Conversations about the Public's Health
A POLITICAL PROVOCATION FROM A PAIR OF PHYSICIANS WRITING OUTSIDE THEIR LANE
Americans care about their health. Americans pay lots of money in hopes of maintaining their health. So why are Americans so unhealthy?
The reason is as a country, the United States overinvests in medical care at the expense of the social, economic, and cultural forces that produce health. The rise of medicine as a cornerstone of American life and culture has coincided with a social and political devaluation of factors demonstrated to mean more to our vitality than anything else -- influences like where we live, work, and play; livable wages that create opportunity for healthy living; and gender and racial equity.
In Pained , physicians Michael Stein and Sandro Galea push the conversation around American health where it toward matters of class, money, and culture. Across more than 50 essays and data illustrations, Pained casts a light on how the structural components of everyday life -- like school, housing, police, even cell phones -- ultimately determine who gets to be healthy in today's America. In doing so, it makes a case for reframing our political discourse in less myopic, more effectual terms.
Accessible and surprising, political but not partisan, Pained is the urgent, uncomfortable conversation that American needs in this challenging moment. It will delight and infuriate readers of all political stripes.
Americans care about their health. Americans pay lots of money in hopes of maintaining their health. So why are Americans so unhealthy?
The reason is as a country, the United States overinvests in medical care at the expense of the social, economic, and cultural forces that produce health. The rise of medicine as a cornerstone of American life and culture has coincided with a social and political devaluation of factors demonstrated to mean more to our vitality than anything else -- influences like where we live, work, and play; livable wages that create opportunity for healthy living; and gender and racial equity.
In Pained , physicians Michael Stein and Sandro Galea push the conversation around American health where it toward matters of class, money, and culture. Across more than 50 essays and data illustrations, Pained casts a light on how the structural components of everyday life -- like school, housing, police, even cell phones -- ultimately determine who gets to be healthy in today's America. In doing so, it makes a case for reframing our political discourse in less myopic, more effectual terms.
Accessible and surprising, political but not partisan, Pained is the urgent, uncomfortable conversation that American needs in this challenging moment. It will delight and infuriate readers of all political stripes.
272 pages, Paperback
Published March 13, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 21, 2024
I started reading this as a additional resource for a college course this fall semester and set out to finish it. It is a great,accessible read for anyone who is looking to be come more educated in the public health world. Its short essays can be a blessing and drawback. It encourages personal research and engagement, but if you’re looking for something in depth or engaging within one idea you won’t find it here.
May 7, 2022
All these mini essays pave way to discussion about big, macro level issues. If you want a quick lesson on what is public health & why, this is your book. A major takeaway is that to invest in public health is to invest in social, economic, educational and political systems and vice versa.
April 19, 2023
had to read this for public health, really informative, short essays were very digestible but got the wheels turning really well
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews