Social Movements and the Transformation of American Health Care - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195388291 ISBN 13: 9780195388299

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2010

Synopsis

Few contemporary social problems in the U.S. affect more people daily than those within the American health care system. Social Movements and the Transformation of American Health Care is the first collection of essays to examine dynamics of change in health care institutions through the lens of contemporary theory and research on collective action. Gathering scholars from medicine, health policy, history, sociology, and political science, the book considers health-related social movements from four distinct levels, concentrating on movements seeking changes in the regulation, financing, and distribution of health resources; changes in institutions in public health, bio-ethics, and other fields; interactions between social movements and professions; and the cultural dominance of the medical model, and the difficulties for framing and legitimizing new issues in health care it poses. At a time when American health care is long overdue for major changes, this book takes an essential look at movements, policies, and institutions to identify the common constraints and opportunities for reform within the health care system.

About this title

About the Author

Jane Banaszak-Holl is Associate Professor of Health Management and Policy in the School of Public Health, a Research Associate Professor in the Institute of Gerontology at the School of Medicinem and Adjunct Associate Professor of Organizational Studies in the College of Literature, Science and Arts, at the University of Michigan.

Sandra R. Levitsky is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Michigan.

Mayer Zald is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Social Work, and Management at the University of Michigan. He has authored or edited twenty-one books, and more than seventy articles. Among other honors, he is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Review

"A volume that fills a major gap--a theoretically rich, very well integrated, and quite timely collection by a distinguished group of scholars that illuminates the role of social movements and collective action in the transformation of the U.S. health care system."--John D. McCarthy, Professor of Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University

"Social Movements and the Transformation of American Health Care succeeds wonderfully in the editors' objective to bridge the divide between scholarship in the field of social movements and that of health care. As issues relating to health become ever more central in American politics and culture, the essays in this volume offer unusually valuable insights into this crucial and contested terrain."--Carole Joffe, author of Dispatches from the Abortion Wars

"This is a compelling and innovative collection that opens an analytically fruitful and politcally important door for sociological research." --Contemporary Sociology

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0195388291
• ISBN 13: 9780195388299
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400
• Editor: Banaszak-Holl Jane C., Levitsky Sandra R., Zald Mayer N.