Unequal Health

Health shows us how people are affected by the lives they lead. Learning about it gives us a window into how people experience society and its injustices. Grace Budrys is a guide you can trust: she understands her subject, writes simply and clearly, and tells it like it is. As you read this book, you will find she becomes a friend as well as a teacher. This book is a gift to us all. -- Richard Wilkinson, University of Nottingham Medical School, co-founder of The Equality Trust
Numerous primate species are hierarchical, where it can be a profound, existential drag to be low-ranking. But nothing rivals the human invention of socioeconomic status and inequality when it comes to subordinating the have-nots. It has long been recognized that these consequences include poor health. In this excellent, accessible new edition of Unequal Health, Budrys reviews the pathways mediating the social determinants of health. This is an important book, made even more so, I suspect, by the current political climate. -- Robert Sapolsky, Stanford University
Carefully researched, beautifully written, and accessible to most readers, Unequal Health is an indispensable book for anyone concerned about growing health inequities. The third edition provides a welcome update. Budrys addresses timely issues, such as the Affordable Care Act and its impact, along with long-standing concerns related to the social distribution of health behaviors and health care access that shape social variation in health outcomes. -- Robyn Lewis Brown, University of Kentucky