Essentials of Health Justice: Law, Policy, and Structural Change

Given the national reckoning around structural inequality, racism, and intractable health disparities, there is an unrequited demand among faculty and scholars who teach and write about health equity and social justice for texts that go beyond a discussion of the social determinants of health and access to care to provide analysis that offers a structural and legal lens for understanding entrenched health inequity in the U.S. The COVID-19 pandemic has only made the need for this approach more compelling and urgent. With the assistance and expertise of new co-author Ruqaiijah Yearby, authors Elizabeth Tobin-Tyler and Joel Teitelbaum build and expand upon their first edition, Essentials of Health Justice: A Primer, to meet that need with their significantly expanded text, Essentials of Health Justice, Second Edition. This new edition explores the historical, structural, and legal underpinnings of racial, ethnic, gender-based, and ableist inequities in health, and provides a framework for students to consider how and why health inequity is tied to the ways that laws are structured and enforced. Additionally, it offers analysis of potential solutions and posit how law may be used as a tool to remedy health injustice. Written for a wide, interdisciplinary audience of students and scholars in public health, medicine, and law, as well as other health professions, this accessible text discusses both the systems and policies that influence health and explores opportunities to advocate for legal and policy change by public health practitioners and policymakers, physicians, health care professionals, lawyers, and lay people. Key Features: - Significantly expanded and divided into 5 Parts each of which concludes with discussion questions and/or case studies - New chapter 2 looks at social movements from the history of the U.S., such as the Civil Rights Movement, Poor People's Campaign, Women's Movement, and the Gay Rights Movement - New Part 4 on Historically Excluded Populations and Health Injustice includes new chapters focusing on specific populations: BIPOC, immigrants, women, LBGQ, and people with disabilities