Gender and Health

Chloe E. Bird, PhD, is a Senior Sociologist at RAND, Professor of Sociology at the Frederick S. Pardee RAND Graduate School, Associate Editor of Women's Health Issues and the immediate past Chair of the Medical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association. Her research focuses on assessing the determinants of gender and racial/ethnic differences in the physical and mental health of individuals and in the health care they receive. Dr Bird has led numerous NIH-funded studies on gender and racial/ethnic differences in health and health care and on neighborhood effects on health. In current work, she is exploring how characteristics of a neighborhood's social and built environment contribute to the health of men and women and to racial/ethnic disparities in health. This interdisciplinary work is intended to help target interventions to reduce health disparities. Dr Bird has published in a wide range of journals and has co-authored numerous book chapters and reports, including two recent reports for the Office of Women's Health. In 1995, Dr Bird received the Elliot Freidson Outstanding Publication Award from the Medical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association. Her work has repeatedly been recognized among the most outstanding abstracts at the Academy Health Annual Research Meeting; in 2006, she was awarded a month-long collaborative residency by the Rockefeller Foundation to work at their Bellagio Center in Italy. Patricia P. Rieker is Adjunct Professor of Sociology at Boston University, Associate Professor of Psychiatry (Sociology) at Harvard Medical School, and Emeritus Professor at Simmons College, Boston. She was formerly the Director of Psychosocial Research at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, where her research focused on health care outcomes for men with genitourinary cancers. Dr Rieker is also an evaluation research consultant to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and has worked with the Research Triangle Institute, the National Office of the American Cancer Society and National Women's Resource Center, and SAMHSA. Among her numerous publications are several co-edited books: The Gender Gap in Psychotherapy: Social Realities and Psychological Processes and Mental Health: Racism and Sexism (which was named an Outstanding Book by the Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in North America). Her current research interests include cross-national comparisons of gender and health, the determinants of health care outcomes, and evaluation research capacity building.

'There is a growing body of international research on gender and health research, but much of it concerns either women or men and focuses on either social or biological factors in explanation. By overcoming these limitations, Chloe Bird and Patricia Rieker's 'constrained choice' approach is an excellent and timely framework for the analysis of the complex relationship between gender and health. Clearly written and supported by a wealth of research evidence, the book will be of great interest to both researchers and policy makers.' Ellen Annandale, University of Leicester

• 1. Gender differences in health: are they biological, social or both?; 2. Gender and barriers to health: constrained choice in everyday decisions; 3. National social policies and constrained choice; 4. The impact of community on health; 5. Priorities and expectations: men's and women's work, family life and health; 6. Gender and individual health choices; 7. Opportunities for change.