The Edinburgh Companion to the Politics of American Health

by Martin Halliwell (Editor), Sophie A. Jones (Editor)

Overview

By emphasising the plurality of health experiences, and balancing national and transnational perspectives with the lived realities of diverse communities, this groundbreaking collection expands far beyond biomedical conceptions of health. Together, the contributors take a multi-layered view of the politics of US healthcare by examining it from historical, cultural, medical, sociological, legal, ethical and environmental perspectives. Chapters consider major health institutions and the federal policies that guide them; the intersection between health and social movements; the contours of health and illness with respect to race, gender, sexuality, age and region; and the US's often-conflicted role in global health governance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474450966
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	08/25/2022
Pages:	664
Product dimensions:	6.69(w) x 9.61(h) x (d)

About the Author

Martin Halliwell is Professor of American Thought and Culture at the University of Leicester. His recent books include The Edinburgh Companion to the Politics of American Health (2022) and Transformed States: Medicine, Biotechnology, and American Culture, 1990–2020 (2025).

Sophie A. Jones is Lecturer in Contemporary Literature and Gender Studies at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Political Landscapes of American Health, 1945–2020Martin Halliwell and Sophie A. Jones

Part I. Geography, Community and American Health

1. Health and Inequality in the Postwar MetropolisAndrew R. Highsmith

2. Poverty, Health and Health Care in Rural CommunitiesJessica D. Ulrich-Schad, Cynthia M. Duncan and Kristin Koci

3. The Politics of Immigration Meets the Politics of Health CareBeatrix Hoffman

4. Latinxs and the US Health Care SystemRocío Calvo and Victor Figuereo

5. American Indian Health: The Medicine Wheel versus the Iron Triangle Margaret P. Moss

Part II. Critical Health Conditions: Debates and Histories

6. The Politics of Polio Vaccination in Postwar America, 1950–60: Detractors and DefendersStephen E. Mawdsley

7. Beyond the Cancer WarsS. Løchlann Jain

8. A System in Crisis: US Health Care Politics and the AIDS Epidemic Jonathan Bell

9. The Politics of ‘Obesity’: Medicalisation, Stigmatisation and Liberation of Fat BodiesKatelyn B. Ferreira and Katrina T. Webber

10. Revising Diagnoses, Reinventing Psychiatry: DSM and Major Depressive DisorderOwen Whooley

Part III. The Politics of Children’s Health

11. US Children’s Health Insurance: Policy Advocacy and Ideological ConflictAlice Sardell

12. Autism and the Anti-Vaccine MovementKristin Bumiller

13. Diagnosing Deficit, Promising Enhancement: ADHD and Stimulants on ScreenSophie A. Jones

14. On the Possibility of Affirmative Health Care for Transgender ChildrenJules Gill-Peterson

15. Black Infant Mortality: Continuities, Contestations and CareAnnie Menzel and Tia Murray

Part IV. The Institutional Matrix of Health Care

16. The Regional and Racial Politics of Postwar Hospitals Karen Kruse Thomas

17. Health Activism in the 1960s and the Community Health Centre System Thomas J. Ward Jr.

18. The Veterans Administration and PTSD: Challenges and Changes from Vietnam to IraqJenna Pitchford-Hyde

19. The Pharmaceutical Industry, Drug Regulation and US Health ServicesDavid Healy

20. The National Institutes of Health: Courting Congress, Creating a Research InfrastructureDavid Cantor

Part V. The White House, Congress and Health Reform

21. Left Out: Health Security and the American Welfare State, 1935–50 Colin Gordon

22. Medicare and Medicaid after the Great Society: Containing Costs, Expanding CoverageJill Quadagno

23. Mental Health, Stigma and Federal Reform in the 1970s and 1990sMartin Halliwell

24. The War on Drugs: Nixon, Reagan, Trump Matthew R. Pembleton

25. Obamacare and its CriticsAlex Waddan

Part VI. Justice, Ethics and American Health

26. Roe v. Wade and the Cultural Politics of Abortion: The Shift from Rights to HealthMary Ziegler

27. Genetics, Health and the Making of America’s Triracial Isolates, 1950–80Michell Chresfield

28. The Rhetoric and Politics of American Ageism: Notes from a PandemicJudy Z. Segal

29. Towards a Structural Competency Framework for Addressing US Gun ViolenceJonathan M. Metzl, Philip J. Pettis, Tara McKay and Jennifer L. Piemonte

30. Mass Incarceration and Health Inequity in the United States Johanna T. Crane

Part VII. Public Health and Global Health

31. Occupational and Environmental Health in Twentieth-Century AmericaDavid Rosner and Gerald Markowitz

32. Environmental Health beyond the State: Thinking through the 1970sJennifer Thomson

33. Bioterrorism, Pandemic and the American Public Melanie Armstrong

34. Health Internationalism in the US and Beyond Anne-Emanuelle Birn and Theodore M. Brown

35. Pandemics and the Politics of Planetary HealthPriscilla Wald

General BibliographyBiographiesIndex

Editorial Reviews

This volume is a timely reminder that American health and health care have always been political. Drawing from experts across the social sciences and humanities, the collection offers an impressive range of topics that together underscore the urgency of centering not only the social but the political determinants of health, broadly imagined. It will undoubtedly prove valuable to historians, literary critics, rhetoricians, political scientists, sociologists and anthropologists for research and classroom adoption for many years to come.

Northeastern University Sari Altschuler