Martin Halliwell is Professor of American Thought and Culture at the University of Leicester. His recent books include The Edinburgh Companion to the Politics of American Health (2022) and Transformed States: Medicine, Biotechnology, and American Culture, 1990–2020 (2025). Sophie A. Jones is Lecturer in Contemporary Literature and Gender Studies at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

This volume is a timely reminder that American health and health care have always been political. Drawing from experts across the social sciences and humanities, the collection offers an impressive range of topics that together underscore the urgency of centering not only the social but the political determinants of health, broadly imagined. It will undoubtedly prove valuable to historians, literary critics, rhetoricians, political scientists, sociologists and anthropologists for research and classroom adoption for many years to come.

• Introduction: The Political Landscapes of American Health, 1945–2020Martin Halliwell and Sophie A. JonesPart I. Geography, Community and American Health 1. Health and Inequality in the Postwar MetropolisAndrew R. Highsmith2. Poverty, Health and Health Care in Rural CommunitiesJessica D. Ulrich-Schad, Cynthia M. Duncan and Kristin Koci3. The Politics of Immigration Meets the Politics of Health CareBeatrix Hoffman4. Latinxs and the US Health Care SystemRocío Calvo and Victor Figuereo5. American Indian Health: The Medicine Wheel versus the Iron Triangle Margaret P. MossPart II. Critical Health Conditions: Debates and Histories6. The Politics of Polio Vaccination in Postwar America, 1950–60: Detractors and DefendersStephen E. Mawdsley7. Beyond the Cancer WarsS. Løchlann Jain8. A System in Crisis: US Health Care Politics and the AIDS Epidemic Jonathan Bell9. The Politics of ‘Obesity’: Medicalisation, Stigmatisation and Liberation of Fat BodiesKatelyn B. Ferreira and Katrina T. Webber10. Revising Diagnoses, Reinventing Psychiatry: DSM and Major Depressive DisorderOwen WhooleyPart III. The Politics of Children’s Health11. US Children’s Health Insurance: Policy Advocacy and Ideological ConflictAlice Sardell12. Autism and the Anti-Vaccine MovementKristin Bumiller13. Diagnosing Deficit, Promising Enhancement: ADHD and Stimulants on ScreenSophie A. Jones14. On the Possibility of Affirmative Health Care for Transgender ChildrenJules Gill-Peterson15. Black Infant Mortality: Continuities, Contestations and CareAnnie Menzel and Tia MurrayPart IV. The Institutional Matrix of Health Care 16. The Regional and Racial Politics of Postwar Hospitals Karen Kruse Thomas17. Health Activism in the 1960s and the Community Health Centre System Thomas J. Ward Jr.18. The Veterans Administration and PTSD: Challenges and Changes from Vietnam to IraqJenna Pitchford-Hyde19. The Pharmaceutical Industry, Drug Regulation and US Health ServicesDavid Healy20. The National Institutes of Health: Courting Congress, Creating a Research InfrastructureDavid CantorPart V. The White House, Congress and Health Reform 21. Left Out: Health Security and the American Welfare State, 1935–50 Colin Gordon22. Medicare and Medicaid after the Great Society: Containing Costs, Expanding CoverageJill Quadagno23. Mental Health, Stigma and Federal Reform in the 1970s and 1990sMartin Halliwell24. The War on Drugs: Nixon, Reagan, Trump Matthew R. Pembleton25. Obamacare and its CriticsAlex WaddanPart VI. Justice, Ethics and American Health26. Roe v. Wade and the Cultural Politics of Abortion: The Shift from Rights to HealthMary Ziegler27. Genetics, Health and the Making of America’s Triracial Isolates, 1950–80Michell Chresfield28. The Rhetoric and Politics of American Ageism: Notes from a PandemicJudy Z. Segal29. Towards a Structural Competency Framework for Addressing US Gun ViolenceJonathan M. Metzl, Philip J. Pettis, Tara McKay and Jennifer L. Piemonte30. Mass Incarceration and Health Inequity in the United States Johanna T. CranePart VII. Public Health and Global Health 31. Occupational and Environmental Health in Twentieth-Century AmericaDavid Rosner and Gerald Markowitz32. Environmental Health beyond the State: Thinking through the 1970sJennifer Thomson33. Bioterrorism, Pandemic and the American Public Melanie Armstrong34. Health Internationalism in the US and Beyond Anne-Emanuelle Birn and Theodore M. Brown35. Pandemics and the Politics of Planetary HealthPriscilla WaldGeneral BibliographyBiographiesIndex

Martin Halliwell is Professor of American Thought and Culture at the University of Leicester. His recent books include The Edinburgh Companion to the Politics of American Health (2022) and Transformed States: Medicine, Biotechnology, and American Culture, 1990–2020 (2025). Sophie A. Jones is Lecturer in Contemporary Literature and Gender Studies at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

This volume is a timely reminder that American health and health care have always been political. Drawing from experts across the social sciences and humanities, the collection offers an impressive range of topics that together underscore the urgency of centering not only the social but the political determinants of health, broadly imagined. It will undoubtedly prove valuable to historians, literary critics, rhetoricians, political scientists, sociologists and anthropologists for research and classroom adoption for many years to come.

• Introduction: The Political Landscapes of American Health, 1945–2020Martin Halliwell and Sophie A. JonesPart I. Geography, Community and American Health 1. Health and Inequality in the Postwar MetropolisAndrew R. Highsmith2. Poverty, Health and Health Care in Rural CommunitiesJessica D. Ulrich-Schad, Cynthia M. Duncan and Kristin Koci3. The Politics of Immigration Meets the Politics of Health CareBeatrix Hoffman4. Latinxs and the US Health Care SystemRocío Calvo and Victor Figuereo5. American Indian Health: The Medicine Wheel versus the Iron Triangle Margaret P. MossPart II. Critical Health Conditions: Debates and Histories6. The Politics of Polio Vaccination in Postwar America, 1950–60: Detractors and DefendersStephen E. Mawdsley7. Beyond the Cancer WarsS. Løchlann Jain8. A System in Crisis: US Health Care Politics and the AIDS Epidemic Jonathan Bell9. The Politics of ‘Obesity’: Medicalisation, Stigmatisation and Liberation of Fat BodiesKatelyn B. Ferreira and Katrina T. Webber10. Revising Diagnoses, Reinventing Psychiatry: DSM and Major Depressive DisorderOwen WhooleyPart III. The Politics of Children’s Health11. US Children’s Health Insurance: Policy Advocacy and Ideological ConflictAlice Sardell12. Autism and the Anti-Vaccine MovementKristin Bumiller13. Diagnosing Deficit, Promising Enhancement: ADHD and Stimulants on ScreenSophie A. Jones14. On the Possibility of Affirmative Health Care for Transgender ChildrenJules Gill-Peterson15. Black Infant Mortality: Continuities, Contestations and CareAnnie Menzel and Tia MurrayPart IV. The Institutional Matrix of Health Care 16. The Regional and Racial Politics of Postwar Hospitals Karen Kruse Thomas17. Health Activism in the 1960s and the Community Health Centre System Thomas J. Ward Jr.18. The Veterans Administration and PTSD: Challenges and Changes from Vietnam to IraqJenna Pitchford-Hyde19. The Pharmaceutical Industry, Drug Regulation and US Health ServicesDavid Healy20. The National Institutes of Health: Courting Congress, Creating a Research InfrastructureDavid CantorPart V. The White House, Congress and Health Reform 21. Left Out: Health Security and the American Welfare State, 1935–50 Colin Gordon22. Medicare and Medicaid after the Great Society: Containing Costs, Expanding CoverageJill Quadagno23. Mental Health, Stigma and Federal Reform in the 1970s and 1990sMartin Halliwell24. The War on Drugs: Nixon, Reagan, Trump Matthew R. Pembleton25. Obamacare and its CriticsAlex WaddanPart VI. Justice, Ethics and American Health26. Roe v. Wade and the Cultural Politics of Abortion: The Shift from Rights to HealthMary Ziegler27. Genetics, Health and the Making of America’s Triracial Isolates, 1950–80Michell Chresfield28. The Rhetoric and Politics of American Ageism: Notes from a PandemicJudy Z. Segal29. Towards a Structural Competency Framework for Addressing US Gun ViolenceJonathan M. Metzl, Philip J. Pettis, Tara McKay and Jennifer L. Piemonte30. Mass Incarceration and Health Inequity in the United States Johanna T. CranePart VII. Public Health and Global Health 31. Occupational and Environmental Health in Twentieth-Century AmericaDavid Rosner and Gerald Markowitz32. Environmental Health beyond the State: Thinking through the 1970sJennifer Thomson33. Bioterrorism, Pandemic and the American Public Melanie Armstrong34. Health Internationalism in the US and Beyond Anne-Emanuelle Birn and Theodore M. Brown35. Pandemics and the Politics of Planetary HealthPriscilla WaldGeneral BibliographyBiographiesIndex

Martin Halliwell is Professor of American Thought and Culture at the University of Leicester. His recent books include The Edinburgh Companion to the Politics of American Health (2022) and Transformed States: Medicine, Biotechnology, and American Culture, 1990–2020 (2025). Sophie A. Jones is Lecturer in Contemporary Literature and Gender Studies at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow.

This volume is a timely reminder that American health and health care have always been political. Drawing from experts across the social sciences and humanities, the collection offers an impressive range of topics that together underscore the urgency of centering not only the social but the political determinants of health, broadly imagined. It will undoubtedly prove valuable to historians, literary critics, rhetoricians, political scientists, sociologists and anthropologists for research and classroom adoption for many years to come.

• Introduction: The Political Landscapes of American Health, 1945–2020Martin Halliwell and Sophie A. JonesPart I. Geography, Community and American Health 1. Health and Inequality in the Postwar MetropolisAndrew R. Highsmith2. Poverty, Health and Health Care in Rural CommunitiesJessica D. Ulrich-Schad, Cynthia M. Duncan and Kristin Koci3. The Politics of Immigration Meets the Politics of Health CareBeatrix Hoffman4. Latinxs and the US Health Care SystemRocío Calvo and Victor Figuereo5. American Indian Health: The Medicine Wheel versus the Iron Triangle Margaret P. MossPart II. Critical Health Conditions: Debates and Histories6. The Politics of Polio Vaccination in Postwar America, 1950–60: Detractors and DefendersStephen E. Mawdsley7. Beyond the Cancer WarsS. Løchlann Jain8. A System in Crisis: US Health Care Politics and the AIDS Epidemic Jonathan Bell9. The Politics of ‘Obesity’: Medicalisation, Stigmatisation and Liberation of Fat BodiesKatelyn B. Ferreira and Katrina T. Webber10. Revising Diagnoses, Reinventing Psychiatry: DSM and Major Depressive DisorderOwen WhooleyPart III. The Politics of Children’s Health11. US Children’s Health Insurance: Policy Advocacy and Ideological ConflictAlice Sardell12. Autism and the Anti-Vaccine MovementKristin Bumiller13. Diagnosing Deficit, Promising Enhancement: ADHD and Stimulants on ScreenSophie A. Jones14. On the Possibility of Affirmative Health Care for Transgender ChildrenJules Gill-Peterson15. Black Infant Mortality: Continuities, Contestations and CareAnnie Menzel and Tia MurrayPart IV. The Institutional Matrix of Health Care 16. The Regional and Racial Politics of Postwar Hospitals Karen Kruse Thomas17. Health Activism in the 1960s and the Community Health Centre System Thomas J. Ward Jr.18. The Veterans Administration and PTSD: Challenges and Changes from Vietnam to IraqJenna Pitchford-Hyde19. The Pharmaceutical Industry, Drug Regulation and US Health ServicesDavid Healy20. The National Institutes of Health: Courting Congress, Creating a Research InfrastructureDavid CantorPart V. The White House, Congress and Health Reform 21. Left Out: Health Security and the American Welfare State, 1935–50 Colin Gordon22. Medicare and Medicaid after the Great Society: Containing Costs, Expanding CoverageJill Quadagno23. Mental Health, Stigma and Federal Reform in the 1970s and 1990sMartin Halliwell24. The War on Drugs: Nixon, Reagan, Trump Matthew R. Pembleton25. Obamacare and its CriticsAlex WaddanPart VI. Justice, Ethics and American Health26. Roe v. Wade and the Cultural Politics of Abortion: The Shift from Rights to HealthMary Ziegler27. Genetics, Health and the Making of America’s Triracial Isolates, 1950–80Michell Chresfield28. The Rhetoric and Politics of American Ageism: Notes from a PandemicJudy Z. Segal29. Towards a Structural Competency Framework for Addressing US Gun ViolenceJonathan M. Metzl, Philip J. Pettis, Tara McKay and Jennifer L. Piemonte30. Mass Incarceration and Health Inequity in the United States Johanna T. CranePart VII. Public Health and Global Health 31. Occupational and Environmental Health in Twentieth-Century AmericaDavid Rosner and Gerald Markowitz32. Environmental Health beyond the State: Thinking through the 1970sJennifer Thomson33. Bioterrorism, Pandemic and the American Public Melanie Armstrong34. Health Internationalism in the US and Beyond Anne-Emanuelle Birn and Theodore M. Brown35. Pandemics and the Politics of Planetary HealthPriscilla WaldGeneral BibliographyBiographiesIndex