Hardbound. Volume 18 in this series 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.Health, Illness and Use of Care 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 current diversity within the...

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. 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...

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...

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...

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...

This volume provides a unique sociological focus on education, social factors and health beliefs in health and health care, including a review of the literature to date. Beliefs and health beliefs are considered, including one study evaluating cross-national differences in public beliefs about the causes of health and the role of these beliefs in shaping attitudes to health policy. Another study focuses on the complexity and variation of health care system distrust across neighborhoods in one US city. The topic of education is addressed, including a focus on the importance of identification...