The Biology of Disadvantage

The Biology of Disadvantage PDF Author: Judith Stewart
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN:
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
How does socioeconomic status "get into the body" to affect health? A decade ago, when the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health began to answer this question, few studies directly tested the pathways and mechanisms that contribute to the gradient relationship between socioeconomic status and health. The scientific research presented in this volume captures where the field stands after 10 years of intense research by the MacArthur Network and others into the mechanisms of health disparities. In addition, it illustrates the power of a multidisciplinary approach to complex social issues. Finally, it presents potential applications of the accumulated knowledge for social interventions and raises pragmatic issues that are important to consider when science is translated into policy and intervention. NOTE: Annals volumes are available for sale as individual books or as a journal. For information on institutional journal subscriptions, please visit www.blackwellpublishing.com/nyas. ACADEMY MEMBERS: Please contact the New York Academy of Sciences directly to place your order (www.nyas.org). Members of the New York Academy of Science receive full-text access to the Annals online and discounts on print volumes. Please visit http://www.nyas.org/MemberCenter/Join.aspx for more information about becoming a member.

The Biology of Disadvantage

The Biology of Disadvantage PDF Author: Judith Stewart
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN:
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book Here

Book Description
How does socioeconomic status "get into the body" to affect health? A decade ago, when the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health began to answer this question, few studies directly tested the pathways and mechanisms that contribute to the gradient relationship between socioeconomic status and health. The scientific research presented in this volume captures where the field stands after 10 years of intense research by the MacArthur Network and others into the mechanisms of health disparities. In addition, it illustrates the power of a multidisciplinary approach to complex social issues. Finally, it presents potential applications of the accumulated knowledge for social interventions and raises pragmatic issues that are important to consider when science is translated into policy and intervention. NOTE: Annals volumes are available for sale as individual books or as a journal. For information on institutional journal subscriptions, please visit www.blackwellpublishing.com/nyas. ACADEMY MEMBERS: Please contact the New York Academy of Sciences directly to place your order (www.nyas.org). Members of the New York Academy of Science receive full-text access to the Annals online and discounts on print volumes. Please visit http://www.nyas.org/MemberCenter/Join.aspx for more information about becoming a member.

The Biological Consequences of Socioeconomic Inequalities

The Biological Consequences of Socioeconomic Inequalities PDF Author: Barbara Wolfe
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 161044793X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Social scientists have repeatedly uncovered a disturbing feature of economic inequality: people with larger incomes and better education tend to lead longer, healthier lives. This pattern holds across all ages and for virtually all measures of health, apparently indicating a biological dimension of inequality. But scholars have only begun to understand the complex mechanisms that drive this disparity. How exactly do financial well-being and human physiology interact? The Biological Consequences of Socioeconomic Inequalities incorporates insights from the social and biological sciences to quantify the biology of disadvantage and to assess how poverty gets under the skin to impact health. Drawing from unusually rich datasets of biomarkers, brain scans, and socioeconomic measures, Biological Consequences of Socioeconomic Inequalities illustrates exciting new paths to understanding social inequalities in health. Barbara Wolfe, William N. Evans and Nancy Adler begin the volume with a critical evaluation of the literature on income and health, providing a lucid review of the difficulties of establishing clear causal pathways between the two variables. In their chapter, Arun S. Karlamangla, Tara L. Gruenewald, and Teresa E. Seeman outline the potential of biomarkers—such as cholesterol, heart pressure, and C-reactive protein—to assess and indicate the factors underlying health. Edith Chen, Hannah M. C. Schreier, and Meanne Chan reveal the empirical power of biomarkers by examining asthma, a condition steeply correlated with socioeconomic status. Their analysis shows how stress at the individual, family, and neighborhood levels can increase the incidence of asthma. The volume then turns to cognitive neuroscience, using biomarkers in a new way to examine the impact of poverty on brain development. Jamie Hanson, Nicole Hair, Amitabh Chandra, Ed Moss, Jay Bhattacharya, Seth D. Pollack, and Barbara Wolfe use a longitudinal Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) study of children between the ages of four and eighteen to study the link between poverty and limited cognition among children. Michelle C. Carlson, Christopher L. Seplaki, and Teresa E. Seeman also focus on brain development to examine the role of socioeconomic status in cognitive decline among older adults. Featuring insights from the biological and social sciences, Biological Consequences of Socioeconomic Inequalities will be an essential resource for scholars interested in socioeconomic disparities and the biological imprint that material deprivation leaves on the human body.

Handbook of Life Course Health Development

Handbook of Life Course Health Development PDF Author: Neal Halfon
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319471430
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 667

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Book Description
This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. ​This handbook synthesizes and analyzes the growing knowledge base on life course health development (LCHD) from the prenatal period through emerging adulthood, with implications for clinical practice and public health. It presents LCHD as an innovative field with a sound theoretical framework for understanding wellness and disease from a lifespan perspective, replacing previous medical, biopsychosocial, and early genomic models of health. Interdisciplinary chapters discuss major health concerns (diabetes, obesity), important less-studied conditions (hearing, kidney health), and large-scale issues (nutrition, adversity) from a lifespan viewpoint. In addition, chapters address methodological approaches and challenges by analyzing existing measures, studies, and surveys. The book concludes with the editors’ research agenda that proposes priorities for future LCHD research and its application to health care practice and health policy. Topics featured in the Handbook include: The prenatal period and its effect on child obesity and metabolic outcomes. Pregnancy complications and their effect on women’s cardiovascular health. A multi-level approach for obesity prevention in children. Application of the LCHD framework to autism spectrum disorder. Socioeconomic disadvantage and its influence on health development across the lifespan. The importance of nutrition to optimal health development across the lifespan. The Handbook of Life Course Health Development is a must-have resource for researchers, clinicians/professionals, and graduate students in developmental psychology/science; maternal and child health; social work; health economics; educational policy and politics; and medical law as well as many interrelated subdisciplines in psychology, medicine, public health, mental health, education, social welfare, economics, sociology, and law.

Communities in Action

Communities in Action PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309452961
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 583

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Book Description
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.

Disadvantage

Disadvantage PDF Author: Jonathan Wolff
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199278261
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
The authors combine a philosophical analysis of the idea of disadvantage with proposals for moving society in the discretion of equality, by 'declustering disadvantage'. The book will help political philosophers, social policy theorists, and practitioners involved in the design and delivery of actual social policy.

The Biology of Civilisation

The Biology of Civilisation PDF Author: Stephen Vickers Boyden
Publisher: UNSW Press
ISBN: 9780868407661
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
Looks at the complex interrelationships between human culture and the nature. Covering the period from the beginning of agriculture right up to the present day, it focuses on issues relating to human health and well-being and the state of our natural environment. From his vast survey, author Stephen Boyden draws some key conclusions critical to the future of humanity.

Biology at Work

Biology at Work PDF Author: Kingsley R. Browne
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813542472
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Does biology help explain why women, on average, earn less money than men? Is there any evolutionary basis for the scarcity of female CEOs in Fortune 500 companies? According to Kingsley Browne, the answer may be yes. Biology at Work brings an evolutionary perspective to bear on issues of women in the workplace: the "glass ceiling," the "gender gap" in pay, sexual harassment, and occupational segregation. While acknowledging the role of discrimination and sexist socialization, Browne suggests that until we factor real biological differences between men and women into the equation, the explanation remains incomplete. Browne looks at behavioral differences between men and women as products of different evolutionary pressures facing them throughout human history. Womens biological investment in their offspring has led them to be on average more nurturing and risk averse, and to value relationships over competition. Men have been biologically rewarded, over human history, for displays of strength and skill, risk taking, and status acquisition. These behavioral differences have numerous workplace consequences. Not surprisingly, sex differences in the drive for status lead to sex differences in the achievement of status. Browne argues that decision makers should recognize that policies based on the assumption of a single androgynous human nature are unlikely to be successful. Simply removing barriers to inequality will not achieve equality, as women and men typically value different things in the workplace and will make different workplace choices based on their different preferences. Rather than simply putting forward the "nature" side of the debate, Browne suggests that dichotomies such as nature/nurture have impeded our understanding of the origins of human behavior. Through evolutionary biology we can understand not only how natural selection has created predispositions toward certain types of behavior but also how the social environment interacts with these predispositions to produce observed behavioral patterns.

The Oxford Handbook of Poverty and Child Development

The Oxford Handbook of Poverty and Child Development PDF Author: Valerie Maholmes, Ph.D., CAS Ph.D.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199772967
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 750

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Book Description
Over 15 million children live in families subsisting below the federal poverty level, and there are nearly 4 million more children living in poverty today than in the turn of the 21st century. When compared to their more affluent counterparts, children living in fragile circumstances-including homeless children, children in foster care, and children living in families affected by chronic physical or mental health problems-are more likely to have low academic achievement, to drop out of school, and to have health and behavioral problems. The Oxford Handbook of Poverty and Child Development provides a comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms through which socioeconomic, cultural, familial, and community-level factors impact the early and long-term cognitive, neurobiological, socio-emotional, and physical development of children living in poverty. Leading contributors from various disciplines review basic and applied multidisciplinary research and propose questions and answers regarding the short and long-term impact of poverty, contexts and policies on child developmental trajectories. In addition, the book features analyses involving diverse children of all ages, particularly those from understudied groups (e.g. Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, immigrants) and those from understudied geographic areas (e.g., the rural U.S; international humanitarian settings). Each of the 7 sections begins with an overview of basic biological and behavioral research on child development and poverty, followed by applied analyses of contemporary issues that are currently at the heart of public debates on child health and well-being, and concluded with suggestions for policy reform. Through collaborative, interdisciplinary research, this book identifies the most pressing scientific issues involving poverty and child development, and offers new ideas and research questions that could lead us to develop a new science of research that is multidisciplinary, longitudinal, and that embraces an ecological approach to the study of child development.

The Oxford Handbook of Poverty and Child Development

The Oxford Handbook of Poverty and Child Development PDF Author: Valerie Maholmes
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199769109
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 750

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Book Description
Comprehensive and integrative, The Oxford Handbook of Poverty and Child Development describes the contextual and social ecology of children living in poverty and illuminates the biological and behavioral interactions that either promote optimal development or that place children at risk of having poor developmental outcomes.

U.S. Health in International Perspective

U.S. Health in International Perspective PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309264146
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.