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Health and Inequality
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Health and Inequality
Geographical Perspectives

First Edition


December 2003 | 344 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
`At last! A tour de force on cities and health by someone who knows that geography matters. This is a groundbreaking text, preoccupied as much with health and well-being as with death, disease and despair. It is concerned with who wins and who loses from the social and spatial patterning of risk… Combining breadth of coverage with depth of analysis, Health and Inequality provides an intricate map of harmful spaces and healing places, together with some guidelines on how to get from one to the other' - Professor Susan Smith, Ogilvie Professor of Geography, University of Edinburgh

'Too often as health professionals we remain embedded in nursing and medical literature neglecting the opportunities offered through engaging with other bodies of knowledge. Such an opportunity presents itself in this book which draws on work undertaken by geographers that can help us in our thinking about health inequalities. The strength of this work lies in its aim to ensure that place and space are recognised as significant factors in health inequalities' - Community Practitioner

Health and Inequality presents a comprehensive analysis of how geographical perspectives can be used to understand the problems of health inequalities. The text has three principal themes: to discuss the geography of health inequality and to examine strategies for reducing disadvantage; to review and develop the theoretical basis for a geographical analysis of these problems - the discussion will illustrate how theoretical developments can help in the design and evaluation of intervention; and to explain how different methodologies in the geography of health, both quantitative and qualitative, can be applied in research - demonstrating the complementarity between them. By relating theoretical arguments to specific landscapes, Health and Inequality will be a key resource for understanding the articulation between theory and empirical methods for understanding health variation in urban areas.

 
Introducing Geographical Perspectives on Health and Inequality
 
PART ONE: GEOGRAPHICAL LANDSCAPES OF HEALTH
 
Therapeutic Landscapes
Wellness, Healing Places and Complementary Therapies

 
 
Landscapes of Power
Surveillance, Exclusion and Social Control

 
 
Landscapes of Poverty and Wealth
 
Landscapes of Consumption
Care and Commodification

 
 
Ecological Landscapes
Populations, Air, Water and Ground

 
 
PART TWO: INTEGRATING LANDSCAPE PERSPECTIVES: ASPECTS OF HEALTH IN URBAN SETTINGS
 
The Geography of Mental Health in Cities
 
Geography of an Infectious Disease
The Example of Tuberculosis

 
 
Health Geography in Strategies to Improve Public Health

`At last! A tour de force on cities and health by someone who knows that geography matters. This is a groundbreaking text, preoccupied as much with health and well-being as with death, disease and despair. It is concerned with who wins and who loses from the social and spatial patterning of risk… Combining breadth of coverage with depth of analysis, Health and Inequality provides an intricate map of harmful spaces and healing places, together with some guidelines on how to get from one to the other' - Professor Susan Smith, Ogilvie Professor of Geography, University of Edinburgh


I am unable to review this title as my copy never arrived.

Miss Melissa Mclaughlin
Health, Coventry University Scarborough Campus
March 14, 2019

An interesting approach to health inequalities and focussing on geographical perspectives is worth doing. The text provides some good insights into the geography of health but I felt the book text heavy for a student text. More illustrations would have been helpful. e.g I was surprised to only see 3 maps in a text with a geographical focus given the huge development of use of mapping tools within public health intelligence in the UK. There was also scope to explore local health inequalities more fully and to look at some of the more recent work on geodemographic segmentation.

Dr Ivan Gee
Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University
September 9, 2013

An excellent textbook, explaining in a straightforward way the relationships between humans and their environment, both social as well as physical.

Dr Elias Symeonakis
Dept Environ'l & Geographical Sciences, Manchester Metropolitan University
June 14, 2013

A very useful supplementary text for Health & social Geography

Professor Clive Sabel
Department of Geography, Exeter University
January 30, 2013

After meeting Professor Curtis once at a conference, I find myself becoming more and more familiar with her work. I was recently asked to work on a “Population, Health and Place” course, and began to explore different texts which might be suitable. As a social gerontologist, I find the geography of health extremely interesting, and thanks to Professor Curtis’ book, I now also find it (more) easy to comprehend and discuss with my students. I found the breadth of theoretical and empirical findings in her book very satisfying, also the complementarity between quantitative and qualitative methodologies, and her experiences of space and place from regional settings through to international frameworks. My own professional interests peaked when reading about sites of struggle, poverty of places, spaces of risk for human health and not just ‘how’ but ‘where’ care could be best placed for mental illness. Professor Curtis’ work argues compellingly that places, not just people, are key when discussing health differences: ‘why’ places are so important to health, poverty, risk, wealth, consumption and power. For my undergraduate students this book will be a useful, and challenging, resource. It provides study questions and prompts with a long list of suggestions for further reading. Professor Curtis’ book brought together a wide range of topics, in a consistent and interesting format.

Dr Meredith Tavener
Demography, Groningen University (RuG)
November 18, 2010

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