Whilst the body has recently assumed greater sociological significance, there has been less engagement in social work and social care on the bodily experience of health, illness and disease. This innovative volume redresses the balance by exploring chronic illness and social work, through the specific lens of autoimmunity, engaging in wider debates around vulnerability, resistance and the lived experience of ongoing ill-health. Moving beyond existing conceptualisations of vulnerability as an issue of mental distress, ageing, child protection and poverty, Price and Walker demonstrate the role that society has to play in actively engaging the physical body, rather than working around and through it. The book focuses on auto-immune conditions such as lupus, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and scleroderma. Conditions like these allow for an exploration of the materiality of illness which exacerbates social and economic vulnerability and may precipitate personal and social crises, requiring a variety of interventions and support. The risks and challenges associated with chronic illness include disruptions to a sense of self and identity, altered relationships and the renegotiation of roles and responsibilities in a variety of relationships in addition to an economic impact, with the potential for disruption to employment status and financial insecurity. This text opens up a range of debates around some of the central concerns of the social work profession, including vulnerability, ill-health, and independence. It will be of interest to scholars and students of social work, nursing, disability studies, medicine and the social sciences.

Whilst the body has recently assumed greater sociological significance, there has been less engagement in social work and social care on the bodily experience of health, illness and disease. This innovative volume redresses the balance by exploring chronic illness and social work, through the specific lens of autoimmunity, engaging in wider debates around vulnerability, resistance and the lived experience of ongoing ill-health. Moving beyond existing conceptualisations of vulnerability as an issue of mental distress, ageing, child protection and poverty, Price and Walker demonstrate the role that society has to play in actively engaging the physical body, rather than working around and through it. The book focuses on auto-immune conditions such as lupus, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and scleroderma. Conditions like these allow for an exploration of the materiality of illness which exacerbates social and economic vulnerability and may precipitate personal and social crises, requiring a variety of interventions and support. The risks and challenges associated with chronic illness include disruptions to a sense of self and identity, altered relationships and the renegotiation of roles and responsibilities in a variety of relationships in addition to an economic impact, with the potential for disruption to employment status and financial insecurity. This text opens up a range of debates around some of the central concerns of the social work profession, including vulnerability, ill-health, and independence. It will be of interest to scholars and students of social work, nursing, disability studies, medicine and the social sciences.

Role in forming balanced assessments.

In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

Over the past four decades, the rate of incarceration in the United States has skyrocketed to unprecedented heights, both historically and in comparison to that of other developed nations. At far higher rates than the general population, those in or entering U.S. jails and prisons are prone to many health problems. This is a problem not just for them, but also for the communities from which they come and to which, in nearly all cases, they will return. Health and Incarceration is the summary of a workshop jointly sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences(NAS) Committee on Law and Justice and the Institute of Medicine(IOM) Board on Health and Select Populations in December 2012. Academics, practitioners, state officials, and nongovernmental organization representatives from the fields of healthcare, prisoner advocacy, and corrections reviewed what is known about these health issues and what appear to be the best opportunities to improve healthcare for those who are now or will be incarcerated. The workshop was designed as a roundtable with brief presentations from 16 experts and time for group discussion. Health and Incarceration reviews what is known about the health of incarcerated individuals, the healthcare they receive, and effects of incarceration on public health. This report identifies opportunities to improve healthcare for these populations and provides a platform for visions of how the world of incarceration health can be a better place.

Primarily intended for DNP and PhD students in nursing and health care who are expected to design research to identify health-related problems and solutions, this book focuses on the concepts, theories and processes of how social determinants affect the health of populations. Using specific social determinants as an organizing framework, it presents ample scientific evidence from health and social disciplines of the universal processes that produce the social patterning of health inequities. This book is organized into three major parts, beginning with the social pathways to health vulnerability, followed by research methods and subsequently frameworks for action. The methods section provides selected research approaches suitable for studying the impact of social variables on population health, as well as the outcomes of multilevel interventions. Each chapter provides an in-depth presentation of relevant theoretical knowledge and research-based examples of work conducted in the area. The book addresses the specific implications for health professional leaders such as nurses or health policy makers, highlighting their role in achieving macrosocial changes to promote health among specific vulnerable populations. Both of the book’s editors are prominent and highly respected scholars in their field. The team of authors is highly multidisciplinary, including experts from the fields of medicine, public health, education and epidemiology who have conducted research on the social determinants of population health. Combining their varied perspectives, this book offers a valuable resource for graduate students (PhD, MD, DNP, MSN, etc.), faculty, researchers and clinicians in health professions.