The Financial and Economic Crises and Their Impact on Health and Social Well-being

About the book This volume provides a timely collection of the most germane studies and commentaries on the complex links between recent changes in national economies, welfare regimes, social inequalities, and population health. Drs. Vicente Navarro and Carles Muntaner have selected 24 representative articles, organized around six themes, from the widely read pages of the International Journal of Health Services (2006-2013)—articles that not only challenge conventional approaches to population health but offer new insights and robust results that critically advance public health scholarship. Part I applies a social-conflict perspective to better understand how political forces, processes, and institutions precede and give rise to social inequalities, economic instability, and population health. The need to politicize dominant (neoliberal) ideologies is emphasized, given its explanatory power to elucidate unequal power relations. The next four parts focus on the health impacts of growing inequalities and economic decline on government services and transfers (Part II); labor markets and employment conditions (Part III); welfare states and regimes (Part IV); and social class relations (Part V). Part VI advocates for a more politically engaged approach to population health and presents alternative solutions to achieving egalitarian outcomes, which, in turn, improve health and reduce health inequalities. Taken together, the works in this volume reflect IJHS's collective commitment to publishing high-impact studies, inspiring fruitful debates, and advancing the discipline in new and essential ways. Emerging and established researchers as well as students and professionals committed to health equity matters will benefit from this book's astute contributions.INTENDED AUDIENCE:Social scientists interested in health (health sociologists, anthropologists, economists, political scientists, historians); public health researchers and practitioners; medical doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other health professionals interested in terminants of health; and academic, research, and practice communities with an interest in society and health.

Carles Muntaner, M.D., Ph.D., is a professor in the Faculty of Nursing, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and in the Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, at the University of Toronto. Since the 1990s, he has conducted research on social inequalities in health in the United States, European Union, Latin America, and Western Africa, integrating the public health fields of occupational health and social epidemiology. Originally from Barcelona, Muntaner studied at the Lycee Francais, University of Barcelona, and Johns Hopkins University. He completed his postdoctoral training at the Laboratory of Socio-Environmental Studies, National Institute of Mental Health, in the United States. His research focuses on the study of work organization in relation to psychiatric disorders, the conceptualization and measurement of social class and racism, comparative politics, welfare states, labor markets, precarious employment and health, and philosophy of epidemiology. Muntaner has worked with the World Health Organization, Pan American Health Organization, U.S. and Spanish unions, and the Ministries of Health of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the Republic of Chile. Dr. Muntaner was co-chair of the Employment Conditions Network of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health and a founding member of GREDS/EMCONET at the Pompeu Fabra University. He is also Associate Editor of the International Journal of Health Services. He is the recipient of the Wade Hampton Frost Award from the American Public Health Association. He is a member of GREDS/EMCONET at the Pompeu Fabra University. Vicente Navarro was born in Barcelona. He received his M.D. from the University of Barcelona in 1962, and left Spain for political reasons due to his active participation in the Spanish anti-fascist underground. He studied political economy at the London School of Economics and health administration at Edinburgh University. He received his doctorate in public policy from the Johns Hopkins University. He is Professor of Health and Social Policy at the Johns Hopkins University and is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Health Services. In Spain, he is Professor of Economics at the University of Barcelona and Professor of Political and Social Sciences at the Pompeu Fabra University. He directs the Public and Social Policy Program jointly sponsored by the Pompeu Fabra University and the Johns Hopkins University.