How do some families create more healthful environments for their children? How do we explain the health status differences between men and women, blacks and whites, and different communities or cultures? How is stress generated in the workplace? What accounts for the persistent social class differences in mortality rates? Why do societies experience higher rates of mortality after economic recession? Such fundamental questions about the social determinants of health are discussed in depth in this wide-ranging and authoritative book. Well-known contributors from North America and Europe assess the evidence for the diverse ways by which society influences health and provide conceptual frameworks for understanding these relationships. The book opens with a broad review of research on the social environment's contribution to health status and then addresses particular social factors: the family, the community, race, gender, class, the economy, the workplace and culture. The concluding two chapters examine the contribution of medicine to the improved health of Americans and recast the health care policy debate in a broad social policy context.

Fourteen year-old Hamish doesn't simply do terrible things, he is committed to the belief that violence is the solution to the obstacles in life. But Hamish is also extremely smart, and extremely self-aware. And he considers everyone around him-the other institutionalized boys, his teachers and wardens, the whole world-as sheep, blindly following society's rules, unaware of what really dictates our existence. Hamish's heroes, like Alexander the Great, understood that violence drives us all. Through mesmerizing journal entries, Violence 101 paints a disturbing yet utterly compelling picture of an extremely bright, extremely misguided adolescent who must navigate a world that encourages aggressive behavior at every turn, but then struggles to help a young man who doesn't know where to draw the line between appropriate and inappropriate behavior.

Drawing upon previously unpublished archival materials as well as historical accounts, Gere traces the history of writing groups in America, from their origins over a century ago to their recent reappearance in the works of Macrorie, Elbow, Murray, and others. From this historical perspective Gere examines the theoretical foundations of writing groups, challenging the traditional concept of writing as an individual performance. She offers instead a broader view of authorship that includes both individual and social dimensions, with implications not only for the teaching of composition but also for theories of rhetoric and literacy.