Gender, Race, Class, and Healthexamines relationships between economic structures, race, culture, and gender, and their combined influence on health. The authors systematically apply social and behavioral science to inspect how these dimensions intersect to influence health and health care in the United States. This examination brings into sharp focus the potential for influencing policy to improve health through a more complete understanding of the structural nature of race, gender, and class disparities in health. As useful as it is readable, this book is ideal for students and professionals in public health, sociology, anthropology, and women’s studies.

Fourteen contributions from leading social scientists and public health scholars examine the relationships between race, class, and gender, and assess their combined influence on health. The focus is on how these interconnections work to produce disparities in morbidity and mortality. The final three chapters explore possibilities for combating health inequalities through individual resistance, public health interventions, and organized social movements. Schulz is a health behavior researcher at the U. of Michigan, and Mullings teaches anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

"…pathbreaking in clarifying how and why intersectional approaches to health research will best allow us to understand and formulate applied solutions to address health disparities." (Gender and Society)

"…coherent illustration of potential contribution of qualitative social science to debates on disparities in health." (New England Journal of Medicine, January 18, 2007)

"More and more students in public health, sociology, and anthropology are studying these intersections but this is arguably the first book to truly do justice to the topic."

—Meredith Minkler, professor of Health and Social Behavior, University of California, Berkley, and coeditor, Community Participatory Research for Health

"Weaving a beautiful tapestry out of the cutting edge views of an outstanding group of interdisciplinary scholars, this edited volume provides new depth and focus to the study of intersectionality and health."

—Sherman A. James, Susan B. King Professor of Public Policy Studies, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

"At last, a groundbreaking book highlighting the health consequences of the intersections of race, gender, and social class! Linking public policy and cultural analysis to ethnographic and biomedical data, the volume provides important insights into how intersecting inequalities have complex consequences on the ground and under the skin."

—Alan H. Goodman, president-elect, American Anthropological Association and professor, Biological Anthropology and Natural Science, Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachusetts

This book  for faculty, students, and researchers in public health and the social sciences addresses health disparities based on race and racism, and classism and gender and sexism. This edited volume brings together an interdisciplinary group of social scientists and public health scholars to examine these issues. Included are top scholars and theoreticians, as well as young, emerging voices whose work has already captured the attention of their fields.   

Amy J. Schulz, Ph.D., M.P.H., is a research associate professor with joint appointments in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education and the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, and associate director of the Center for Research on Ethnicity, Culture, and Health at the University of Michigan.

Leith Mullings, Ph.D., is Presidential Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and recipient of the Prize for Distinguished Achievement in the Critical Study of North America (1997) from the Society for the Anthropology of North America.

Tables and Figures.

Acknowledgments.

The Editors.

The Process.

The Contributors.

PARTONE: INTERSECTIONALITY ANDHEALTH.

1. Intersectionality and Health: An Introduction (Leith Mullings, Amy J. Schulz).

PARTTWO: RACE, CLASS, GENDER,ANDKNOWLEDGEPRODUCTION.

2. Reconstructing the Landscape of Health Disparities Research: Promoting Dialogue and Collaboration Between Feminist Intersectional and Biomedical Paradigms (Lynn Weber).

3. Moods and Representations of Social Inequality (Emily Martin).

4. Constructing Whiteness in Health Disparities Research (Jessie Daniels, Amy J. Schulz).

PARTTHREE: THESOCIALCONTEXT OFHEALTH ANDILLNESS.

5. The Intersection of Race, Gender, and SES: Health Paradoxes(Pamela Braboy Jackson, David R. Williams).

6. Identity Development, Discrimination, and Psychological Well-Being Among African American and Caribbean Black Adolescents (Cleopatra Howard Caldwell, Barbara J. Guthrie, James S. Jackson).

7. Disparities in Latina Health: An Intersectional Analysis (Ruth E. Zambrana, Bonnie Thornton Dill).

8. Immigrant Workers: Do They Fear Workplace Injuries More Than They Fear Their Employers? (Marianne P. Brown).

PARTFOUR: STRUCTURINGHEALTHCARE: ACCESSQUALITY ANDINEQUALITY.

9. Health Disparities: What Do We Know? What Do We Need to Know? What Should We Do? (H. Jack Geiger).

10. From Conspiracy Theories to Clinical Trials: Questioning the Role of Race and Culture versus Racism and Poverty in Medical Decision Making (Cheryl Mwaria).

11. Whose Health? Whose Justice? Examining Quality of Care and Forms of Advocacy for Women Diagnosed with Breast Cancer (Mary K. Anglin).

PARTFIVE: DISRUPTINGINEQUALITY.

12. Resistance and Resilience The Sojourner Syndrome and the Social Context of Reproduction in Central Harlem (Leith Mullings).

13. Intersections of Race, Class, and Gender in Public Health Interventions (Amy J. Schulz, Nicholas Freudenberg, Jessie Daniels).

14. Movement-Grounded Theory: Intersectional Analysis of Health Inequities in the United States (Sandi Morgen).