An American Health Dilemma: Race,Medicine,and Health Care in the United States 1900-2000 by W. Michael Byrd, Linda A. Clayton, H. Jack Geiger (Foreword by)

From the Publisher

Today Blacks live five to seven fewer years than Whites. Black infant mortality is 2.2 times that of Whites. Blacks lead in death rates in 14 of 16 leading diseases, many preventable. Diabetes is 33% more common in Blacks, and cancer mortality has increased 50% for Blacks since 1950 but only 10% for Whites. Breakthroughs such as vaccinations, invasive cardiac procedures, cancer therapies, MRIs, and organ transplants have dramatically improved the health of Americans in the last century, but health care for African Americans has been dangerously deficient, even unavailable.

An American Health Dilemma is the first comprehensive effort to place African Americans'deficit health in its full socio-cultural context. In the highly anticipated volume two, Byrd and Clayton complete the story begun in the first Pulitzer Prize nominated volume, bringing us from the turn of the century to the health care disparities that persist even now.

Backed by exhaustive research, Byrd and Clayton argue thatrace- and class-based inequities, bias, and inequalities are systemic, culturally embedded problems that in the last hundred years have been marked by small gains, disastrous setbacks, and a passive acceptance of African Americans, and other disadvantaged groups, as a permanent health underclass. Even gains made in the 1960s, they maintain, didn't do enough to advance the health care of African Americans.

A monumental and original work of scholarship, An American Health Dilemma will be the essential reference about the Black medical and health experience for years to come.

Cornel West

Essential reading for those interested in American History and the Black medical experience. How timely it is!

William Julius Wilson

By far the most comprehensive historical and sociocultural analysis ever published on race and the African-American medical experience.

Rodney G. Hood

At last! A must to be included in the teaching curricula of all medical and public health schools.

Doody Review Services

Reviewer:Larry Brown, MD (Creighton University Medical Center)
Description:This work is a dissertation on the historic and contemporary factors that impact the health status of Black Americans.
Purpose:The authors state "These volumes may begin providing a basis for reexamination of the American Health System and equitable reform...if this book sheds new light on the race and class dilemmas plaguing America's health delivery system, the struggle and sacrifice will have been worth while." This work reveals for some and reminds others that there remains a chasm in health access, access to education in the health sciences, and health outcomes between Whites and Black Americans, other minority groups, and the financially poor. This book has met its objectives and is necessary reading for all who would serve the American community through the practice and delivery of medical care.
Audience:According to the authors, the intended audience are those persons who would reexamine the U.S. healthcare system. The audience could be expanded to include academic and private physicians, physicians in training, medical students, state and national medical policy makers, insurance providers, public health leaders, civic leaders, and families in our minority communities.
Features:This book provides a wealth of historic and contemporary data on the health status of American minorities, particularly Black Americans. The use of charts and graphs make this work very readable. The comprehensive index, bibliography, and glossary make this work a useful resource for those who seek to better understand and/or research health disparitiesin America.
Assessment:As the director of a statewide project to address the infant mortality rate/disparities and to improve access to healthcare in Nebraska, I applaud the authors. This book is a tool which will benefit our work for equity in health outcomes and improved health outcomes as a whole. Physician educators will find this work invaluable in training our students and residents to see healthcare both in the context of the community and social justice. Many find the glaring disparities in health access and outcomes to be a failure and embarrassment of past and present generations. This book will aid in addressing this blight on American history.

Library Journal

In this follow-up to the path-breaking An American Health Dilemma: A Medical History of African Americans and the Problem of Race (LJ 8/00), the authors, both senior research scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health, complete their study of African American healthcare. While the first book concentrated on issues before 1900, this volume's statistic-packed and thoroughly documented narrative explores 20th-century advances in healthcare, the development of the insurance industry, declining support for public health, and the myriad social and economic factors that have had disparate impacts on the health of black Americans. Continuing a troubling theme from their first volume, the authors also probe the effects of racism in the medical professions, which led to pernicious eugenics theories and shocking medical experiments well into the 20th century. Both volumes of this landmark study are essential for medical and African American studies collections. Kathleen Arsenault, Univ. of South Florida, St. Petersburg Lib. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Rating

4 Stars! from Doody

Product Details

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