Jennie Jacobs Kronenfeld - Böcker

President Bush's 1000 points of light, with its deemphasis on federal services, serves to flame this decades' debate over the effectiveness of public versus private services. Does the private sector provide better services more efficiently than the public sector? Captive Populations examines this debate by comparing for-profit, nonprofit, and government service delivery for dependent populations. Focus is placed on services for captive groups: education and child-care, health-care systems, criminal justice services, and long-term care for the elderly. Kronenfeld and Whicker have directed themselves to scholars and practitioners in public health, health administration, public policy, public administration, gerontology, criminal justice, social work, and education. They review service delivery issues and provide a broad comparative perspective.Captive Populations focuses on services for the young, the incarcerated, the sick, and the elderly. Kronenfeld and Whicker thoroughly explore the advantages and disadvantages of public versus nonprofit and private service delivery for each of these dependent populations. They then summarize the similarities and differences across the four service and captive population areas. They discuss implications of the growth of for-profit care in the United States and conclude with recommendations.

Health care in the United States at the end of the 20th century occupies a completely different place in the economy, in the public consciousness, and in its impact on government, than it did at the beginning of the century, or even in the early years of the Clinton Administration. Health care is now a multi-billion dollar industry; one that consumes more than 15 percent of the nation's GNP. Citizens now regard health care as essential to the quality of their lives, and a steady stream of new medications and procedures point to ways to extend the lives of our aging population and restore those injured on or off the job. At the same time, the changing patterns of health care have stirred a national debate over the growth of managed care and the role that government can play in providing solid health care standards—a medical safety net—within tightening budgetary restraints. This book explores the role of the federal government in health care policy development from the years of the Founding Fathers to the present.Kronenfeld reviews the key features of the American health care system, its infrastructure, and federal legislative process and outcomes in the health care arena. The current situation in health care is examined, with particular attention given to the attempt at major reform in the first Clinton administration, and to the modest changes that were ultimately passed. She closes with an examination of the future of health care and the role of government, emphasizing how current health care issues and concerns may set the stage for a changed federal role in funding and delivery of health care services in the next century. This comprehensive examination of the role of government in the health care system will be of great interest to students and researchers of public policy and the social aspects of American health care.

Health care in the United States at the end of the 20th century occupies a completely different place in the economy, in the public consciousness, and in its impact on government, than it did at the beginning of the century, or even in the early years of the Clinton Administration. Health care is now a multi-billion dollar industry; one that consumes more than 15 percent of the nation's GNP. Citizens now regard health care as essential to the quality of their lives, and a steady stream of new medications and procedures point to ways to extend the lives of our aging population and restore those injured on or off the job. At the same time, the changing patterns of health care have stirred a national debate over the growth of managed care and the role that government can play in providing solid health care standards—a medical safety net—within tightening budgetary restraints. This book explores the role of the federal government in health care policy development from the years of the Founding Fathers to the present.Kronenfeld reviews the key features of the American health care system, its infrastructure, and federal legislative process and outcomes in the health care arena. The current situation in health care is examined, with particular attention given to the attempt at major reform in the first Clinton administration, and to the modest changes that were ultimately passed. She closes with an examination of the future of health care and the role of government, emphasizing how current health care issues and concerns may set the stage for a changed federal role in funding and delivery of health care services in the next century. This comprehensive examination of the role of government in the health care system will be of great interest to students and researchers of public policy and the social aspects of American health care.

This book offers a systematic review of major issues and trends in health care policy, including those related to physical health and disease trends, mental and behavioral health concerns, reorganizing the U.S. health system, and managed care and health care personnel. Kronenfeld addresses the problems, challenges, issues and trends in the policies that determine the role and future of health care in the United States. Also covered are special populations, such as the elderly and children, reproductive health, and issues cost, quality, and access to care.Health care policies affect all Americans. Managed care has been a major trend in the past decade's reorganization of the U.S. health care system, yet its future is uncertain. Despite unparalleled spending and the world's most technologically sophisticated health care, measure such as life expectancy and infant mortality rates indicate that the country's health outcomes may not be the best. Mental health and behavioral health problems are major impediments to quality of life for some Americans, and roughly 17% of the population under 65 does not have insurance coverage for necessary health care services. Despite calls for a major overhaul of the U.S. health care system, incremental reform is more likely than major, comprehensive reform.

This book offers a systematic review of major issues and trends in health care policy, including those related to physical health and disease trends, mental and behavioral health concerns, reorganizing the U.S. health system, and managed care and health care personnel. Kronenfeld addresses the problems, challenges, issues and trends in the policies that determine the role and future of health care in the United States. Also covered are special populations, such as the elderly and children, reproductive health, and issues cost, quality, and access to care.Health care policies affect all Americans. Managed care has been a major trend in the past decade's reorganization of the U.S. health care system, yet its future is uncertain. Despite unparalleled spending and the world's most technologically sophisticated health care, measure such as life expectancy and infant mortality rates indicate that the country's health outcomes may not be the best. Mental health and behavioral health problems are major impediments to quality of life for some Americans, and roughly 17% of the population under 65 does not have insurance coverage for necessary health care services. Despite calls for a major overhaul of the U.S. health care system, incremental reform is more likely than major, comprehensive reform.

Including up-to-date details about Medicare in light of the 2010 Health Care Reform bill, this book will help readers understand past concerns about the program, as well as current issues and ways to address them.Medicare is an important source of health-care coverage for almost all Americans aged 65 and over. It can also be one of the most confusing subjects with which citizens must contend. Among the first books to examine the impact of the 2010 health-care reforms on the program, Medicare reviews Medicare's history, explores its current coverages and problems, and takes a look at its probable future.Readers will learn about attempts to pass Medicare legislation, as well as about many of the important changes that have occurred since 1965. They will read about continuing cost concerns over the years and about modifications in both hospital and physician payment approaches. Critically for today's readers, the book examines current issues, such as drug coverage, HMO/managed care options, long-term-care coverage, the demographic-based funding crisis, Medicaid, and the impact of recent health-care reforms. The goal throughout is to help consumers understand Medicare so we can insure that the program remains strong.Primary documents detailing parts of the legislationA timeline of events in the history of Medicare

Expansion of Publicly Funded Health Insurance in the United States introduces the issues, policies, and future concerns of health care within the United States to scholars of social sciences. Through research and outreach projects with the Child Health Insurance Program, Jennie Jacobs Kronenfeld expresses concerns with the United States health care system with a focus on government regulations in conjunction with the health care of children and less affluent Americans. By looking at the precision in which the Child Health Insurance Program performed and examining case studies, Kronenfield is able to parallel government polices with regard to health insurance to the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. This engaging volume is well suited to courses involving the study of social issues and the American government.

Research in the Sociology of Health Care covers health, health care services, and sociological concerns. Each volume addresses an issue of importance in both the US health care system and health care systems across the world. Previously covered topics include:Research on social inequalities Social disparities Chronic diseases Population health Research on access, quality and utilization of health care services Theoretical, qualitative and quantitative papers deal with complex understandings of macro system issues in the following areas:The impact of the patient and individual factors on health and health care The impact of the provider and interaction between providers and patients Gender, race and poverty as sources of inequality in modern societiesArticles vary greatly in their coverage, with some focusing on the US as a whole, and others on specific sections of the US or subgroups within the population such as African American women or the elderly. Other articles focus on issues from an international or comparative perspective.  Each volume includes information that is essential reading for medical sociologists and people working in other social science disciplines studying health-related issues. The volume also provides vital information for health services researchers, policy analysts and public health researchers.

This volume explores issues connected with quality, planning of services and access concerns especially as linked with providers of care, health care institutions, and patients. Changes have continued to occur within the field but have been led by overall marketplace trends. Papers in this volume are presented in four parts covering changing models of health care. In Part I topics come from a broad perspective to include: development of newer models of care, more traditional areas such as the medical profession and the patient or the hospital and the patient, the changes that alternative medicine brings to issues of quality of care and access and planning, and of citizen participation in health planning. Part II deals with federal programs such as Medicare and Medicaid and access and quality issues within those programs. Part III covers the challenges of planning for long-term care needs and services. And Part IV explores other aspects of the changing health care delivery system: changes in nursing, midwifery, and rural health care and provides linkages to quality, access, and planning issues. This excellent work helps the reader to think more carefully and more creatively about issues of quality of care, access to care, and planning for services.

This volume explores issues connected with health care providers, institutions, and patients. The focus of many of the articles is on changing patterns of care delivery and provision of care, as it affects these important groups of actors within the health care system. The articles range from those that focus on more specialized groups of patients, such as the elderly, to those that focus on people who deliver health care services to those that deal with more general issues of the restructuring of the US health care system.

This text explores the impact of social factors on health, illness and the use of care. Contributors examine a number of social factors including sex, gender and socio-economic status on the healthcare experience and focus on both patients within the care process and the providers of care. It also presents papers employing a variety of methodological approaches. In the range of illnesses discussed, the social factors under consideration, and the variety of methodological approaches, this volume represents the diversity within the field of medical sociology.

This text deals with issues of growing importance in both the US health care system and health care systems across the world. Such systems need to respond to changes in technology within health care, shifting technologies not specific to health care, and changes in the way patients and physicians view health and the use of health services in society. Chapters focus on how technologies and programs apply to either general groups within the health care system or more specialized groups, such as people with a certain health care problem. Papers deal with a variety of topics, from a focus on consumers and the varying roles the play in the emerging and changing US health care system, to the examination of specific principles such as social network approaches.

Research on social inequalities has a very long tradition in sociological research, and discussion of the impact of social inequalities on health and health care delivery has long been one of the more important topics covered by medical sociologists. The research presented in this volume varies in its coverage and its approach to issues of social inequality in health and health care delivery. This volume includes both theoretical and quantitative papers, and deals with complex understandings of macro system issues, the impact of the patient and individual factors on health and health care and the impact of the provider and interaction between providers and patients. The first section focuses on macro system issues and includes both theoretical approaches to the topic and quantitative approaches. The second section includes articles with a greater focus on patient characteristics. These articles vary greatly in their coverage, with some focusing on the US as a whole, and others on specific sections of the US or subgroups within the population such as African American women or the elderly. The third section focuses on providers and issues of social inequality and health care delivery. These papers examine issues of gender, race and poverty as examples of sources of inequality in modern societies. In contrast to the second section these papers pay more attention to individual factors and the focus of the chapters is on aspects of health care providers. Research on providers of care is another long, important research tradition within medical sociology. Social Inequalities, Health and Health Care Delivery should be useful reading for medical sociologists and people working in other social science disciplines studying health-related issues. The volume also provides information for health services researchers, policy analysts and public health researchers.

This volume is about gender, health and medicine broadly defined. From the essays in it, it is abundantly clear that medicine is a gendered and class-structured institution. Taken as a whole the volume offers a critique of exclusively biomedical approaches to personal and public health and calls for more sociological input, qualitative research and an intersectional approach to help us understand various aspects of health and illness. Among the recurrent themes in the seven essays are the medicalization of personal and social problems, the commodification of healthcare, and questions of agency, responsibility and control on the parts of recipients and dispensers of healthcare. Six of the seven essays deal with Western medicine exclusively, the seventh examines a situation where women have a choice between Western and traditional treatment. Timely topics such as somatic distress among women with breast cancer, drug company funding of research on women's sexual problems, and racial and ethnic health disparities are represented. A companion volume will focus on conventional and unconventional approaches to managing pregnancy and childbirth. The intended audience is the social science community, especially those who are interested in the social scientific study of medicine or of gender including those who may not be familiar with the areas in which the two overlap.

This volume deals with the reorganizing of health care delivery systems: problems of managed care and other models of health care delivery. Issues of how to best organize a health care delivery system are not new, but the amount of interest in this topic in the US (as well as in other countries) has grown in recent decades. Reorganizing health care delivery systems is a concern of many systems of the world, and this volume contains some papers from countries other than the US, although the majority of the papers do relate issues to the US health care delivery system. While most papers relate to structural and organizational factors, the impact of individual patients is not neglected. The volume contains 11 papers, organized into four sections. The sections cover managed care issues and organizational features, special groups of patients and health issues, lessons from other countries, and broader policy concerns and health insurance reform. This book addresses important themes in medical sociology, with papers that range from those with an explicit policy point of view to narrower papers on more specific issues in health care delivery. It aims to contribute to improving our understanding of these issues and provides a sociological focus for the exploration of them. This should make the volume essential reading for medical sociologists and other social scientists studying health care delivery issues. The information should be also helpful to health services researchers, policy analysts and public health researchers.

This volume offers feminist perspectives on the social, cultural and medical aspects of women as sexual beings and of their fertility, pregnancy and child bearing. It serves as a companion to "Advances in Gender Research volume 7, Gender perspectives on Health and Medicine: Key Themes". As in the previous volume, the authors critique and transcend conventional biomedical approaches to the subject matter. The seven essays raise questions about control and agency asking who decides if, when and how fertility should be controlled and the circumstances under which child birth takes place. They address decision-making on multiple levels from the individual to the national and transnational and grapple with such controversial matters as genital cutting, self-help menstrual extraction and direct-entry midwifery. They interrogate the policies and practices of states and transnational agencies that have a bearing on sexuality and reproductive health, the ways in which womens genitalia have been objectified and manipulated by practices that purport to be both traditional and modern, and the motivations of those who provide alternative forms of fertility control and birthing methods. The intended audience is the social science community, especially those who are interested in the study of gender, sexuality and reproductive health, medicine and alternative medicine, and the areas where these interface.

The theme of this volume is chronic care, health care systems and services integration. The volume is divided into three sections. The first section focuses on issues that relate to health care providers. The second section contains papers that deal with home and community based services for the elderly and those who need chronic care. The third section provides lessons from countries outside the United States related to the overall themes of chronic care, systems integration and services integration. These are themes of growing importance in the US health care system as well as in health care systems in most other developed nations. The aging of populations, already underway, and expected to increase in the coming decades will bring changes and challenges to the health care system. Many of these challenges relate to chronic care needs, since chronic care needs are more important in the elderly than in other population groups, although chronic care problems are not limited to the elderly. Once people reach their 40s and 50s, they begin to develop chronic problems. Chronic problems often require both more health care services and more complicated health care services, and thus place an emphasis on services integration.

The theme of this volume is "Health Care Services, Racial and Ethnic Minorities and Undeserved Populations: Patient and Provider Perspectives". The volume is divided into five sections. The first section discusses the overall issue of health care disparities and undeserved populations and also provides introductory material about the rest of the volume. The next section focuses on issues that relate to gender. The third section provides papers on some other specific examples of undeserved populations: those with mental health concerns, those with concerns related to emotional well being, the elderly population and sex workers. The fourth section includes papers that discuss treatment disparities and providers of care. The final section includes papers that relate to policy concerns. The topic of health care services and undeserved populations is one of growing importance within the US health care system and one of importance in health care systems across the world. Concern about equity in health care is not new. There is a long tradition in medical sociology of studies of inequities in health status and use of health care services. Over the past ten to twenty years, there have been many studies that have documented that race and socioeconomic status (SES) influence the use of health care services. Within the US in the past decade, this area of concern is often described as studies of health disparities and this volume is a contribution to that research. This volume examines the issue more broadly, by including some issues in countries besides the US and examining the role of providers in treatment disparities and important policy concerns.

Traditionally in health services research, cost, quality and access to care have been viewed as the three major issues of health care delivery and have been important in the development of health services research as a multidisciplinary way to examine issues in health care and health care delivery. Satisfaction is often viewed as a specialized aspect of access to care. Given the sociological focus of this volume, costs are less of a focus, but access, quality and satisfaction are important sociological aspects of health services delivery concerns and have been for more than 30 years. This volume explores a variety of those issues in today's health care system, with a strong sociological focus. Besides the introductory section of the volume, the other sections of the volume focus on articles that are about patients and special types of care, elderly care issues, issues of access, quality and satisfaction with care from the perspective of foreign health care systems, and these issues in public systems of care. Some of the specific chapters look at issues of care for Vietnam veterans, patients with myocardial infarctions, and dental care and maternity care, elderly care issues, and what can be learned from explorations of some aspects of the health care systems of Canada and Hungary. "Access, Quality and Satisfaction with Care" is essential reading for medical sociologists and people working in other social science disciplines studying health-related issues. The volume also provides vital information for health services researchers, policy analysts and public health researchers. It looks at health care from a sociological perspective that is more focused on access, quality and satisfaction than cost. The chapters focus on specialized forms of care and specific issues (i.e. Vietnam Veterans, dental and maternity care, elderly care issues, health care systems in different countries, etc.). It is essential for medical sociologists and others in social science industries studying health-related issues.

This volume deals with the topic of health inequalities and health disparities. The volume is divided into five sections. The first section includes an introductory look at the issue of health care inequalities and disparities and also an introduction to the volume. One of the backdrops to this topic in the United States was The National Healthcare Disparities Report and its focus on the ability of Americans to access health care and variation in the quality of care. Disparities related to socioeconomic status were included, as were disparities linked to race and ethnicity and the report also tried to explore the relationship between race/ethnicity and socioeconomic position, as explained in more detail in the first article in the book. The second article discusses a newer overall approach to issues related to health inequalities and health disparities. The remaining four sections of the book address more specific topics relating to inequalities and disparities. The second section examines racial and ethnic inequalities and disparities. The third section includes articles that address the issue from the perspective of research about health care providers and health care facilities. The last two sections of the book focus on consumers and topics of health care disparities, with Section 4 focused on issues related to substance abuse, mental health and related concerns. Section 5 includes articles looking at issues of vulnerable women, women with breast cancer and people with colorectal cancer. "Inequalities and Disparities in Health Care and Health" is important reading for medical sociologists and people working in other social science disciplines studying health-related issues. The volume also provides vital information for health services researchers, policy analysts and public health researchers. The chapters focus on the topics of health inequalities and health disparities. The book is essential for medical sociologists and others in social science industries studying health-related issues.

This volume in the highly-regarded "Research in the Sociology of Health Care" series, deals with both macro-level system issues and micro-level issues involving access to care, factors that impact access, patients as partners in care and changing roles of health providers. It includes: an examination of factors that impact access to care such as racial/ethnic, social, demographic and structural sources, a discussion of changing patterns of care and changing patterns of interaction between patients and providers of care, and an investigation of changing roles of health care providers within the health care delivery system. Key contributions focus on linkages to policy, population concerns and patients and/or providers of care as ways to meet health care needs of people both in the US and in other countries. This volume relates to issues of consumers of health care services, providers of such services and policy perspectives. It also raises issues of the availability of services, access to those services, quality of services and the role of government in services provision.

This issues-based reference work (available in both print and electronic formats) shines a spotlight on health care policy and practice in the United States. Impassioned debates about the best solutions to health care in America have perennially erupted among politicians, scholars of public policy, medical professionals, and the general public. The fight over the Health Care Reform Act of 2010 brought to light a multitude of fears, challenges, obstacles, and passions that often had the effect of complicating rather than clarifying the debate. The discourse has never been more heated. The complex issues that animate the health care debate have forced the American public to grapple with the exigencies of the present system with regard to economic, fiscal, and monetary policy, especially as they relate to philosophical, often ideologically driven approaches to the problem. Americans have also had to examine their ideas about the relationship of the individual to and interaction with the state and the varied social and cultural beliefs about what an American solution to the problem of health care looks like. In light of the need to keep students, researchers, and other interested readers informed and up-to-date on the issues surrounding health care in the U.S., this volume uses introductory essays followed by point/counterpoint articles to explore prominent and perennially important debates, providing readers with views on multiple sides of this complex issue.Features & Benefits:The volume is divided into three sections, each with its own Section Editor: Quality of Care Debates (Dr. Jennie Kronenfeld), Economic & Fiscal Debates (Dr. Mark Zezza), and Political, Philosophical, & Legal Debates (Prof. Wendy Parmet). Sections open with a Preface by the Section Editor to introduce the broad theme at hand and provide historical underpinnings.Each Section holds 12 chapters addressing varied aspects of the broad theme of the section.Chapters open with an objective, lead-in piece (or "headnote") followed by a point article and a counterpoint article.All pieces (headnote, point article, counterpoint article) are signed.For each chapter, students are referred to further readings, data sources, and other resources as a jumping-off spot for further research and more in-depth exploration.Finally, the volume concludes with a comprehensive index, and the electronic version of the book includes search-and-browse features, as well as the ability to link to further readings cited within chapters should they be available to the library in electronic format.

A History of Medical Libraries and Librarianship in the United States: From John Shaw Billingsto the Digital Era presents a history of the profession from the beginnings of the Army Surgeon General’s Library in 1836 to today’s era of the digital health sciences library. The purpose of this book is not only to make this history available to the profession’s practitioners, but also to provide context as medical librarians and libraries enter a new age in their history as the digital information environment has undercut the medical library’s previous role as the depository of the print based KBI/information base. The book divides the profession’s history is divided into seven eras:1. The Era of the Library of the Office of the Army Surgeon General and John Shaw Billings – 1836 – 18982. The Era of the Gentleman Physician Librarian – 1898 to 19453. The Era of the Development of the Clinical Research Infrastructure (NIH), the Rapid Expansion in Funded and Published Clinical Research and the Emergence of Medical Librarianship as a Profession – 1945 – 19624. The Era of the Development of the National Library of Medicine, Online digital Subject Searching (Medline) and the Creation of the National Health Science Library Infrastructure– 1962 – 19755. The Medline Era – A Golden Age for Medical Libraries – 1975 – 19956. The Era of Universal Access to Information and the Transition from Paper to Digitally Based Medical Libraries – 1995 – 2015 7. The Era of the Digital Health Sciences Library – 2015 –Each era is reviewed through discussing the developments in the field and the factors which drove those developments. The book will provide current and future medical librarians and information specialists an understanding of the development of their profession and some insights into its future.

A History of Medical Libraries and Librarianship in the United States: From John Shaw Billingsto the Digital Era presents a history of the profession from the beginnings of the Army Surgeon General’s Library in 1836 to today’s era of the digital health sciences library. The purpose of this book is not only to make this history available to the profession’s practitioners, but also to provide context as medical librarians and libraries enter a new age in their history as the digital information environment has undercut the medical library’s previous role as the depository of the print based KBI/information base. The book divides the profession’s history is divided into seven eras:1. The Era of the Library of the Office of the Army Surgeon General and John Shaw Billings – 1836 – 18982. The Era of the Gentleman Physician Librarian – 1898 to 19453. The Era of the Development of the Clinical Research Infrastructure (NIH), the Rapid Expansion in Funded and Published Clinical Research and the Emergence of Medical Librarianship as a Profession – 1945 – 19624. The Era of the Development of the National Library of Medicine, Online digital Subject Searching (Medline) and the Creation of the National Health Science Library Infrastructure– 1962 – 19755. The Medline Era – A Golden Age for Medical Libraries – 1975 – 19956. The Era of Universal Access to Information and the Transition from Paper to Digitally Based Medical Libraries – 1995 – 2015 7. The Era of the Digital Health Sciences Library – 2015 –Each era is reviewed through discussing the developments in the field and the factors which drove those developments. The book will provide current and future medical librarians and information specialists an understanding of the development of their profession and some insights into its future.

In this volume of "Research in the Sociology of Health Care" a variety of topics concerning patients, consumers, providers and caregivers are covered.

This valuable handbook makes the U.S. health care system understandable, reviews the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or "Obamacare," describes past health care reform efforts, and covers the important organizations and people involved in U.S. health care reform.Why does the United States produce poorer outcomes for Americans in terms of health care than most other developed countries that spend a lower percentage of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on health care? Should health insurance be private or should it be managed by the government? The second edition of Healthcare Reform in America: A Reference Handbook addresses these complex and difficult questions and many more in its thorough treatment of one of the most controversial issues in contemporary American discourse. The work provides a broad introduction to the history and key issues in the development and reform of the U.S. health care system. It then addresses the recent passage of the Affordable Care Act and the myriad of significant expected changes due to the Act, thereby providing readers with information essential to understanding the current issues regarding health care reform. This work serves as a valuable resource to high school and college students as well as to general readers wanting to learn about the history and current focus of health care reform in the United States.

The 30th Anniversary volume of Research in the Sociology of Health Care looks at the important links between major social factors and health and health care. The four main factors examined in the book are race/ethnicity, immigration, Socioeconomic Status (SES) and gender. Starting with an introductory chapter which reviews some of the important sociological literature on these social factors as linked to health, the book goes on to cover various key issues, including obesity, ageing, immigration and racial segregation.

This volume looks at the key links between social determinants, health disparities and health and health care. There is a particular focus on macro-level systems and micro-level issues, including the examination of issues for patients, carers and providers of care. Coverage includes papers on geographical and place factors and disparities, SES and race/ethnicity factors, chronic care and serious health problems such as HIV/AIDs and kidney transplantation, comparative aspects and perceptions of health disparities. Starting with an introduction that reviews the crucial sociological literature on social determinants and health disparities, papers in this volume go on to cover key themes including ageing, barriers to care, ethnicity, social inequalities, the views of parents on their children's care, and doctor/patient relationships.

This volume includes papers related to issues of technology, communication, health disparities and government options in health and health care services. It fills an existing gap by providing a clear sociological overview and focus on these topics. Technology is considered from the perspectives of providing healthcare equity, health disparities and the impact on doctor-patient relationships. The topic of communication is addressed in the format of public health messages and the use of internet chat rooms for discussions about health care services. Government roles and responsibilities are reflected upon in terms of health promotion, marketing and sales of health-related products and improving long-term care programs. Particular mention is made to learning lessons from the experiences and perspectives of other countries. Finally, health disparities are considered in socioeconomic terms, with particular reference to aging, depression, measures of health and healthcare in rural locations.